Odd Moments
by Demyrie
Summary: A collection of off-topic vignettes from my TFA human!AU, Odd Couple. Why is Ratchet so sad? Can Bumblebee manage to keep Sari as a girlfriend? Most of all, where have all those pesky 'Cons got to? Everyone has a place in this world, promise.
1. Old Wound

A/N: YAY, the world is larger than Prowl and Lockdown! Whod'a thunkit? This world-fleshing-out exercise will involve... lesse, I've got MegatronxStarscream, Oilslick, SentinelxBAxOptimus, Blitzwing, LugnutxStrika, Blurr, and a lot of BumblebeexSari lined up. Maybe some Swindle? And I'm totally open for ideas! Most will be drabbles or snippets, no story arcs, and will hopefully be alluded to in Odd Couple. No more OCs, just good ol' canon bots. ...Unless I can finagle Anicon trying to hit on Rodimus Prime (mistakenly cruising a gay club in a very pink shirt) or something, which would be hilarious. HEEHEE.

Ooh, I love Ratchet. He's just so weathered and has been through so much. I love this 'verse a little too much, yes? Twisting all those relationships around...

Ratchet, for sake of the imagination, looks exactly like his Human Error counterpart, crew cut and all. This is happening sometime during the Lockdown debacle, where Ratchet was getting grumpier and grumpier and sadder and sadder without my knowledge. He asked me for a reason, I gave him one. Let's see if you can guess who it is.

I'm pulling Autobots in by the truckload in Odd Couple, so here's my niche for a 'Con or three. I'm so looking forward to this! Enjoi.

* * *

Old Wound

* * *

She came walking up the sidewalk without a trace of a bounce, each Mary Jane step executed with care—then stopped a few strides from the stairs and waited with a bird's flickering gaze until Optimus jingled his industrial-size keys out of the Project lock.

"Um. Excuse me?"

The Prime looked over with his hand on the door-handle, thick brow creeping up bemusedly. He hadn't even seen her until she spoke. She was a tiny fifteen with big blue eyes. Curly brunette buns on either side of her head and a pink sweater for the cold Detroit day.

"Can I help you?" he asked after a moment, as kindly as he could. He wasn't accustomed to seeing children around this portion of town, much less ones without parents grasping each china-doll hand. She carried nothing, stranded on the side of the road with nothing more than an intent expression and laced fingers.

"Does… I'm sorry, I know this sounds strange," she murmured, eyes dropping towards the clean sidewalk for a moment, "but does anyone by the name of Ratchet live here?"

Optimus started, staring at her—trying to fathom her connection to their oldest and crabbiest housemate. A moment later he regained movement, an uncertain smile tugging at his sculpted mouth.

"Yes, he—er, one does," he said with a chuckle, returning his keys to his pocket. He backed off from the door a bit, one foot propped on the top step. "Guess that's not a very common name, though, huh?"

Her candy-pink lips quirked shyly, as though she couldn't find much more to say in front of the handsome Prime. His smile widened, charmed.

"Do you need to see him, miss?"

"Please," she said softly. "Please, I would like that very much."

He opened the door and his mouth, about to ask her where her parents were, but she had already passed under his chin and into the unlit house.

* * *

Part of him hated the Prime. Hated him for letting her in without even telling him. He screened his calls, why the hell wouldn't he screen his visitors? Not that he'd ever had visitors before. Or many calls.

Optimus wouldn't have known what to do in any account, but that didn't make Ratchet forgive him in the slightest: not when a beautiful, expectant creature was standing in front of him with her mary-janes kissing like little black turtles, hands twined together so tightly the knuckles were cream.

"Arcee," he said, trying to make the name fit the dainty young woman. His voice was so gruff, it hardly did her any justice—in fact, with those two clunky syllables, he knew he shouldn't touch her or be near her, like he'd rub that rosy glow off like sandpaper. He was too rough, too old, too cantankerous. She wasn't supposed to be here.

He'd started smoking since… back then. Quit, though. He wondered if she could tell.

"Mr. Ratchet."

"Y'grew up. Real… nice," he added dully, finding it hard to fit words together with her looking at him: just his name in her dainty voice, that shy mister tacked on the front like a flag that marked the distance between them, made his stomach flop. She smiled nervously and looked down at the floor, fingers turning to fret with the hem of her sweater.

"Thank you," she whispered. He nodded and turned towards the big window in the Project commons, old face crumpling slightly in the bright winter sun. He searched for words. Questions. None came. Then:

"M'surprised you remember me."

"Of course I do. You saved me," she said simply—or as though it should be simple, but she couldn't fight off her awe of it.

"Someone told you that," he chuckled blankly after a moment. She looked down at her feet again, lips puckering as she shook her head.

"I was—"

"Too little. I know." He nodded brusquely, then grunted past his teeth: "Practically pulled you out of that house by your jumper-straps. So covered in soot, thought I'd snagged a doll."

It was good. Best she didn't remember the fire—too bad if he and his grasping hands and his gravelly curses as she wailed in his arms got caught in the orange-edged void as well. He was a full-time paramedic then, working with the fire department. The rest of her family was gone in the fire--they got the bodies out--but he heard her crying over the ruckus. They'd missed her during the run-through: she'd buried herself in stuffed animals to escape the heat. Stripping a lackey fireman of his flame-retardant jacket and ignoring all the curses and warnings, he ran in and pulled the sole living thing out of that perfect white house seconds before it crashed into a pile of black, crackling rubble.

And now, here she was.

"I remember you visiting me," she said quietly. "At the orphanage."

He stayed silent, staring out the window at the distant buzz of traffic along the expressway. She remembered that. That made two of them.

He should've just left her alone. He didn't have a thing to do with kids, never had, but they'd wrested her tiny form from his arms and he _felt it_ like he was having a piece cut out of him. He watched her dangling smoke-marbled legs disappear into the back of the van—his van—before he coughed himself down to the black ground. Someone pushed an oxygen mask over his mouth and he didn't have the strength to smack it off. A burly fifty-three year old veteran and he couldn't even growl out that he was fine, _fine_ damnit because that weightlessness of his empty arms spread and he lost consciousness the next black second, feeling his head smacking the sidewalk as nothing more than a ball bouncing against a lacquered gym floor. Crack.

After that, Ratchet was unable to resist the lure of seeing his rescue alive and healthy, but the first few visits, full (or empty) of thick glass and IVs, did him no good. Perhaps hoping for a scrap of the happy finality he never got to see, he'd dropped in to the orphanage a few weeks later—she was alone, now. No one left to take her in. He tried to watch her from afar. Just to see those baby blues open and not gummed shut by tears and smoke. Just to close the book.

He didn't make it across the playground. Functioning on that strange, beautiful intuition that enabled children to _feel_ people, she toddled up to him and begged to be picked up. A nod from the warden let him bend down with his ever-sore back and heft her insubstantial white-legged weight into his massive, bandaged hands. He held her warily, like one would hold a Faberge egg that had still weathered far worse than simple touch. She touched the scar over his right eye, where a bit of her burning house had stuck into him. Then her soft arms twined around his neck, skin scraping his eternal five-o-clock shadow, and he felt something flicker in his weathered chest.

When he got home, he realized a toy—the toy, her only toy, an itty bitty pink and white car—had fallen into his coat pocket. So he came back again.

On again, off again, for five years. Toys in his pockets, the same puzzled look from the warden when he handed back the same little pink car to the same ecstatic little girl. Think he would've wised up after the first five visits, but for a coot as old as he was, five years was a blink—especially when lured in, visit by visit, by a blossoming little beauty who squealed when he tossed her. He smiled, grizzled but honest, every time he saw her. Every time.

Now, here, he didn't know whether they'd told her everything. The fact that he'd been… offered a chance to adopt her.

But he couldn't raise a kid. Not him. Didn't have a lady. Didn't have a house. Just a single, middle-aged workaholic locked in his apartment, most family gone except for a debt-drowned sister in Vermont. Never married.

Visits, visits, visits. Reading to her. Rough voice, but she smiled all the same. Clapping when she cart-wheeled, then gruffly tugging down her calico-print dress afterward, already eyeing the snot-smeared little boys kicking each other off the jungle-gym like animals.

Three years in, they offered again. Adopt her? No. He couldn't teach her what she needed to know. A little gal with a bear like him? No. Wouldn't be proper.

Primus, but she roped him in. Little thing like that. Just… _had_ him, down to his last grisly heartstring. Hadn't been played in a while but she made his battered insides sing for her, the way she slept in his arms, nose against his neck. He was a gruff old man, inconsiderate to a fault; he never stopped for anyone and his favorite hobby was telling people to get their rears in gear, but when she quieted and stilled in his arms and curled her fingers around the collar of his paramedic jacket in a slow, sleepy shuffle of limbs, he couldn't move until she woke up. Just couldn't.

Back in the present, the young woman said something. He didn't hear, too busy retracing the complex warmth of a little girl against his barrel chest. He turned around, making a gruff excuse for however long he was stranded at the window.

Lost on what to say, holding her breath, Arcee (all big blue eyes and curls, look at those _curls_) shuffled forward and held something out for him. Ratchet looked at the flier uncomprehendingly, taking it from her and holding it up to his not-as-good-as-they-used-to-be eyes. He scanned through the first few lines, then smiled. It was a flier for an awards ceremony—and the special guest of honor was standing right in front of him, practically quivering for approval. He chuckled.

"You're a… regular little genius, aren't you?"

"I make good grades," she said shyly, fingers twisting together in a lattice-shape. "I like numbers."

He looked at the flier again, tracing the curly numbers and letters with fond eyes.

"You've come real far, Arcee. Real far. Anybody'd be proud of you." He shook his head and muttered, smile edging on bittersweet, "You did good. Didn't need me to begin with."

It just came out. He realized it the second it hit the Project's concrete floor like a clattering chair and cleared his throat, pretending to continue studying the flier. He heard Arcee take a deep breath. Heard his insides creak to a halt.

"Why did you… stop?"

"I… I, uh," he stuttered, making several gravelly noises, breathing out and clearing his throat. Why had he left her, all alone? He could hardly feel his lips, much less his forebrain, where he kept the fragments of the answer he was always afraid he would have to give her. That one that implied that she wasn't worth it, when really it was all his fault. All his goddamn fault that he couldn't—and shouldn't—have honestly stepped up for her.

"I dunno," he finally muttered over the roil of his nauseated insides. He took another breath. "Didn't wanna… kept askin' me to adopt you. Didn't wanna make you think the wrong thing."

He wasn't a religious man, but it was God's sin, to deceive a sweet little girl like that. Would've been. He felt guilty he couldn't give her a better life than what she had there, so he just exited, quick and clean. Left one day and didn't come back the next week. The next week. The next.

She weathered it. Trusting, strong little tiger, she weathered it for three weeks, then four weeks, then more—because sometimes he didn't show for a month, then visited three times in two days. She always knew he would come, so she just smiled and waited by the playground gates.

He heard she cried when he didn't show, that second month. Got a call from the warden—on a first name basis by now—asking him if something had happened. Had to drink a little that day to keep from getting in the car. Told Alert it was best for the kid then hung up before she could say any different.

All because Arcee, nuzzled into his oversized paramedic jacket like a curly-haired kitten, had called him papa.

Maybe because 'Ratchet' was too hard to say, or maybe because papas were supposed to make kids smile and tug their dresses into place and Ratchet made her laugh like nobodies business, she called him papa and he had to leave. Little kids didn't understand what was best for them. It was up to old, hard people to make the tough decisions for them and weather their crying and be mollified by that gilded fact that they had _done the right thing_ even if it didn't look the same from the bottom of a glass of bourbon. Even if it still left their arms empty at the end of the day and no one was smiling.

Ratchet closed his eyes, but it only spread the sting to every part of him.

"I missed you," she whispered after a long, long silence, absorbing the measure of her own worth.

"Missed you, too," he managed, choking on the words.

Of course he missed her. He missed everything that had gone on in that gap that left him with this bright-eyed young lady instead of the baby he'd left behind. There was a lot to miss—and how it had whipped by him, sitting alone in his cramped apartment living room and then in this sad factory. Too scared of failure to take a chance.

"I want you… to come," she said carefully, from left field. He opened his eyes, confused. "If you don't—if you're not busy."

Ratchet looked down at the flier again, pulling apart the noble-looking text for what she was talking about. Then: admit-one at the bottom. All he had to do was cut it out. It was next week. He looked up at her, brow furrowed.

"It's in the Detroit stadium. I know you… like baseball so it shouldn't be too hard to find."

In his opinion, it was the only sport with any skill left in the world. She knew. He smiled, a gruff jerk of his mouth.

"Been there a few times," he grumbled. He nodded to her, gesturing with the flier. "Thanks."

And that was all there was to say, after twelve years.

After simply looking at him a moment more—memorizing the sticky pink scar above his right eye, the jacket that wasn't so big anymore, his gruff face--she nodded jerkily and started outside. Out to her ride. But Ratchet hadn't heard a car running, he realized, and she was too young to drive. Orphanage was all the way across town.

"You take the bus here, kid?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes," she said quietly and waited, her blue eyes shining, because there was the twelve-year, split-second chance that he would grumble and dig for keys and let her trail behind him to his old emergency van. All she wanted was more of him, more time, more anything. Proof. A second chance. The slightest bit of passenger-side affirmation, the choice of a radio station. He should drive her back. He should.

Breath catching, Ratchet's throat closed and his eyes followed suit for a moment, shutting out the hopeful young woman who wanted nothing more than _time_.

"Be careful on the way back," he grunted, folding the flier up and putting it into his pocket.

"Yes, sir," she murmured after a moment, pretty face falling. She left. Ratchet stared after her, one hand to his tired heart, the other deep in his pocket, thumb sliding haltingly along the edge of the curly-lettered risk an old man couldn't afford to take. Not after so long.

No one could leave a girl like that twice.


	2. Diversity

A/N: Oh god. Jet-twins. So cute. SO CUTE. Excuse my pseudo-Russian for 'videogames'. I found the symbols and translated the sounds, but it's probably REALLY WRONG. Damn modern words. AND OH BUMBLEBEE. So much to learn.

(OH HEY IT BE AN UPDATE. So, double-edged sword here :[ I'm not leaving till this Saturday, but I'm also away for two weeks instead of the one! Wow, can I survive that long in another country?! I think I might freak out…)

Eternal love to my Tanya (the DasveTanya!) for helping inspire this and for simply being the most amazing girl ever, my beautiful and talented she-Jetstorm! I love you!

_Characters: Jet-twins, BB, Sari_

_Pairings: BumblebeexSari_

Edit: HURHUR. Big thanks to GreyGranian for the German-Russian correction! I am a smart little girl, yes I am...

* * *

Diversity

* * *

They were odd. Nothing but oddness in duplicate, actually.

The twins were handsome, to be sure. Jetstorm had a dark, angular type of beauty whereas Jetfire was brash and bright: he dyed his hair from blond to an agent-orange hue, even if it matched his narrow nose and disarmingly wide grin. Their appearance caused an instant furor that had nothing to do with culture and all the girls at Detroit High, attracted as all perfumed animals are to fresh meat and foreign blood, couldn't resist trying to lure the twins in.

It soon turned out they were far too odd to seduce. Puberty, apparently, hit Russians about ten years late and the twins were still waiting for theirs in a neuter-like state, leading them to completely miss even the most explicit of foreign-speaker-friendly innuendo as delivered by the top ranks of the 'It' girls. They didn't seem in any rush to test their English skills either, settling instead for chittering to each other in Russian the entire time, passing spirited opinions and laughing at lord knew what. The twins were possessed of a strange rhythm, each jerky, high-energy and easily distracted: ADHD to the core. The soccer team loved them, to be sure, but the teachers didn't take kindly to the undercurrent of chatter and flippant attitudes, nor their habit of skateboarding across the outside eating area tables.

After most of the girls' propositions had been deflected with a sunny, clueless grin (usually alongside a completely off-topic statement like 'I am Jetfire, I am living in Detroit for these six months and I would like to be making your acquaintances!' or 'I am liking your buildings here, they are very _klëvo_! What is your thought?') and everything ambitious and female started huffing and turning away when they came into a room, Bumblebee had his fun with them. Oh, the subject matter was pretty endless and, as it was well known through Detroit High, BB was a quick, clever guy. There were lots of 'in Soviet Russia jokes', but the twins didn't quite seem to understand that they were being made fun of: they laughed uproariously along with the class, which inexplicably made the whole situation very awkward.

There was a price for humor, every high-schooler knew, and that was that it had to be at someone's expense—and no one seemed to be suffering at the moment. It made the kids more uncomfortable than they could say, and it took them a few weeks to sort through their new conundrum. Either the twins were very lame or Bumblebee was very lame. The latter was decided upon (because the twins were so very beautiful and so very Russian) and any further jokes simply didn't work: understandably, Bumblebee didn't care for the little Russkies very much… especially because they stood at least a foot taller than him and liked to pop his precious yellow cap off and ruffle his hair and call him 'Boomblebee'.

His intense dislike weathered no improvement when Sari, _his girlfriend_ and supposedly the girl aligned with him in all things, asked after them. He gave his honest, very catty opinion while getting into her car (his own was still in the shop). She frowned, watching the two skateboard off benches, taking turns and high-fiving each other after completing a trick.

"You should be nicer to them," she said after he buckled in, navigating her awesome orange corvetta-duex through the parking lot at a crawl. "You know they've only been here a little while, they probably don't have many friends."

"They seem to be getting along just fine," Bumbleblee grumbled, eyeing the admiring cluster of girls who didn't seem to realize they had been scorned and _still_ continued to moon over them. How could two socially inept weirdos be so popular when they made no effort to talk to anyone, even openly avoided girls—who, as everyone knew, held dominion over the flow and hierarchy of the school food-chain? It didn't make _sense_. "Those two are attached at the hip, like, weirdly. You never see them apart and they _never blink_. I even saw them hugging once."

"It would be fun to have a brother or a sister like that." Bumblebee was so busy glaring at the bane(s) of his teenage existence, fist crammed under his cheek, that he missed Sari's slightly wistful tone. He looked over when she tapped his shoulder and gave him a sunny smile. "Still, it's hard to fit into a new place. You should invite them over for videogames or something. Everybody likes videogames."

"Yeah, then wash my controllers afterward. Stupid Commies," he huffed.

"Bumblebee! This isn't the fifties!"

"What? Wait--the 1850's or the 1950's?"

"Remind me again why public school exists?" Sari sighed, giving him a disenchanted sideways glare that even Tutorbot would have approved of. He made a nasty face, sticking his tongue out at her; she sighed again, caught between impatience and affection for what she somehow thought a very cute burst of immaturity. She knew he had no head for history. In the end, the Sumdac heir pulled onto the highway and shook her head. "Nevermind, Rhode scholar. Forget it. Wanna go to the movies?"

"Hecks yeah!" he hooted, all smiles again.

And that was that, except that it wasn't.

He apparently wasn't supposed to 'forget about it' (damn female doublespeak!) because the next time she called him, she asked if he'd made plans for the twins yet. She came over the next day and it spilled over into a not-really-argument (Ratchet, whenever he saw them squawking at each other, labeled it a 'snit-fit' and walked off irritably) that drew a very tired-looking Optimus from his room. He listened to their 'fit' with an interested smile and Sari, knowing a rational soul when she saw one, appealed to Bumblebee's older cousin about inviting the two foreign exchange students over for an afternoon.

Optimus thought it was a grand idea and gave three noble and textbookish reasons why, most involving positive connection with what were essentially foreign dignitaries. Bulkhead was at classes, Ratchet didn't care—he'd been lurking in his room and staring into space lately—and a passing Prowl, when roped in, responded after a thoughtful moment that 'experiencing a small measure of cultural diversity wouldn't be an altogether unnecessary step towards worldliness for such an immature dedicate of ethnocentrism'. This set BB to gaping at him, which in turn lowered his defenses enough to be tricked into nodding when Sari asked him again. His cursing and protesting afterwards did nothing.

They were coming over.

* * *

"Videogames?" they parroted, faces pricked with an identical (and damnably handsome) confusion.

"Yeah. Y'know. Uh." Bumblebee grasped for words, trying hard to _be nice_ and keep it idiot-proof at the same time. "You uh… race cars and play games. On the TV screen. The Playstation 6. Xbox Millennium? Sangria 454. With a controller. Somebody wins, somebody loses?"

The short blond loved being in the limelight, no doubt, but it was especially difficult approaching the twins when the popular kids were staring at his back, already estimating his chances of failure—they, after all, had tempted the twins with clubbing and yacht trips and been turned down. He could surely fair no better and they watched only to see him fall flat on his face. Bumblebee was desperate, not to mention nearly sweating through his hoodie, by the time they traded a few Commie radar chirps and lit up at the same time.

"Aah, _vedega_!" they cried in unison. "We love ve-jeogayms!"

Half stunned and half relieved (then acquiring another half just so it could be miserable), Bumblebee didn't even have to technically _invite_ them: they did it themselves, and they didn't just like videogames. They _lived for_ videogames.

"We are coming over to your living place, yes? After the school, on this day?" Jetfire non-asked, clapping the shorter boy on the shoulder.

"Yes, we will be bringing ours!" Jetstorm exalted, very proud of his new word. "To play the vi-jeogayms!"

"Uh, y-yeah, sure—" Bumblebee chuckled out of his nose, hellishly confused, then reached for them. "Wait--!"

Both twins whooped and high-fived each other, then ran off _holding hands_, chittering to each other in the mother language.

"Oh crap," Bumblebee groaned, too conflicted to even enjoy the envious, half-horrified looks on the popular kid's faces. What had he gotten himself into?"

He still had no idea why Sari was so insistent on meeting them, nor why she looked like she was actually excited, or holding back on something, until they arrived. Bumblebee went to the door, suffering through several graceless questions as to 'why the little bee lived in a factory', then led them into the commons at an unhappy slouch. Sari was the brightest, prettiest and only thing on the couch--and, horribly enough, Jetfire's eyes went wide at the sight of her.

"_Obaldét'_!" he exclaimed, tugging needlessly on Jetstorm's sleeve. "Brother, you are seeing this?"

"Boomblebee, who is this?" Jetstorm asked curiously.

"That's my _girlfriend_," Bumblebee answered icily, not liking the looks the two were giving her red, red hair and dark skin.

"I have a name, you know," Sari said flatly, then flashed a beautiful grin at the twins. Jetfire laughed.

"Da—_Krasivaya_!"

"It is meaning beauty in Russia," Jetstorm finished somewhat lamely, provoked to a near-blush by Sari's confused look; his twin nodded, all grin and eager eyes.

Bumblebee, hackles at full attention, drew breath to hiss a defensive white-boy version of '_Oh no you DIN'T'_. They wouldn't pass up every single girl in Detroit High just to hone in on his lady! He raised a finger to beat back the foreigners and teach them their place (once again slightly paranoid of how _pretty_ Sari was), but Sari laughed and fluffed self-consciously at her scruffy short pigtails.

"_Spasibo_," she responded warmly.

While that was mildly acceptable means to reach out to the gaping cretins, she then rattled off a concise, if awkward, string of Russian. The twins' expressions grew from appreciative to awestruck: the sentence, a very formal text-book greeting, seemed to break any form of respect or fear for personal space. The two boys rushed her, nearly knocking Bumblebee to the floor. Jetfire grabbed her hand while his darker twin seemed content to dance around at her side, huge grin on his face as they inundated her with thick, excited Russian, both going a million miles an hour.

"Woah, woah, slow down!" she squeaked, holding up her hands as they both bounced down on either side of her. "I'm not fluent!"

"How long are you speaking?"

"Are you to be living in Russia?"

"Maybies you are to be coming home with us, da?" Jetfire smarmed.

"Ms. Sari is to be sitting next to me on the aeroplane!" Jetstorm announced, taking her other hand.

"No, brother, next to me!" his brother insisted, giving his twin a punch on the arm. Sari gave the shrillest, silliest giggle that Bumblebee had ever heard out of her mouth. She must have realized how odd it sounded, as she took that moment to look over at her boyfriend, grinning sheepishly from between the two handsome twins.

"You speak Russian!?" Bumblebee demanded, not caring how betrayed he sounded.

"I took an online course last year?" Sari offered hesitantly, squinting then laughing when Jetstorm said something _very_ amusing in Russian. Apparently the twins deserved every bit of popularity they got, because _apparently_ they were charming and entertaining. Apparently they were hilarious. _Apparently_ they were also experts at Gran-Turismo 7, and getting his ass whipped ten times in a row in Multple-Deathrace mode did not improve Bumblebee's mood in the slightest.

Obviously, rather than apparently, it was not a fun afternoon.

By the time the twins' exchange parents finally took them away, Bumblebee was reduced to glaring at the wall until Sari came back from seeing them off. She sat down on the couch with a faint chuckle and a sigh; the twins were so high-energy and it was exhausting doing all that translating. She crossed her skinny legs, leaning her head on her boyfriend's shoulder, not noticing his offended expression.

"You didn't tell me you knew Russian," BB began waspishly after a long, hostile stretch of silence.

"I thought you'd be impressed," she said, frowning mildly at his tone. He pulled away from her, cheeks reddening as three hours of growling bitterness rushed him in a single second.

"You tricked me!"

"Bumbl—what? I _tricked_ you?"

"Yeah, you did! Making me invite them here, just so you could yabber with them!"

"Excuse me? You're making a big deal out of nothing!" Sari protested, looking at her boyfriend in violent disbelief. "I wasn't trying to trick you! Look, I'm… sorry you didn't have much fun. I noticed, you know. You could have asked them to leave."

It didn't matter that Sari had tried to include him multiple times, and she couldn't help it that the twins were infatuated with her. The fact she could _speak_ to them, albeit haltingly and in practical caveman-Russian, made her the belle of the ball, dooming him to total exclusion even when they were sharing the same screen. In fact, her effort—a little like pity and completely the wrong thing when all he wanted was to get her away from the handsome devils moving in on her--only made him angrier.

"Yeah, and ruin your fun time? Get you angry at me? I did it for you, you know, for three whole hours. I shouldn't have asked them over in the first place!"

"I wouldn't have b—well, I'm _sorry_," she snapped, grasping for more ammunition, then grit out, "Maybe I wasn't trying to _trick_ you? Maybe I was trying to surprise you and I just wanted some more friends—you know, normal ones?"

If he were feeling really low, he would've accused her of being able to buy friends, but that only proved her point—she couldn't have normal friends very often, because they always knew her last name before her first name. They were always after something else. He switched gears, grasping for her hand and looking into her face.

"But—you have friends. We hang out all the time!" he said indignantly, still fuming. "Bulkhead, too. And Blurr, you have them! You don't need those stupid Russians."

"Your friends aren't my friends, B," she said, sighing tiredly.

"What, they aren't good enough for Ms. Sumdac?" Bumblebee responded nastily, pricked. Sari made a noise between a growl and a groan, squeezing the hand on hers tensely.

"Bumblebee, they're great guys. I like being around them. I just—I don't have a chance to meet _people_," she murmured, brushing back her red bangs and grimacing into her palm. "It's different for you, you're in _school_. I'm alone all day, with no one but Tutorbot and Sparkplug and Dad is always… I mean, girls my age are _beyond_ dumb, and obsessed with make-up and boys and magazines and sleepovers and I have things to do—_real_ things--but that doesn't mean I don't miss—that I _wouldn't_ miss—"

She stood up suddenly, yanking her arm away from his hand. He looked up at her, bewildered by the movement as the strangely tense breath she took.

"You know what? You wouldn't understand."

"Sari?" he asked faintly, spooked by her tight voice. She looked back for a second, but it was all he needed to see: there were tears in her eyes. Horrified, mind blanking as to _how this happened_, he got to his feet; his face twisted up when she moved her arm out of his reach.

"Sari, I'm… sorry," he mumbled, not knowing quite what to apologize for, nor in what order. "I didn't mean to get like that."

He put his hand on her arm, slowly and carefully as he dared. She didn't react, staring forward viciously then scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand.

"'Get like that'? You mean forgoing my name in front of two people I've never met, like chattel? Then accusing me of tricking you?" she deadpanned. Bumblebee winced.

"Damn."

"Don't curse," she snapped in the same tone.

"Sorry," he blustered softly, running his thumb anxiously over her sweater sleeve. "Sorry. I'm really… really sorry."

She continued to stare at the wall, praying to god that no one would walk in on her-- particularly Prowl. If that happened, she would cry, really cry, and she hated crying. She especially hated crying over stupid, immature boys who just didn't understand; boys who she didn't want to _forgive_ just yet because she still felt horrible and they needed to learn their lesson. Bumblebee, ten inches shorter than his girlfriend and feeling every centimeter like a cinderblock on his neck, waited at her side, radiating regret and looking down every so often.

"Can I have a hug?" he asked at length, biting his lip and trying to turn her around.

She didn't like to be asked if she needed a hug. She was a strong girl and while Bumblebee was always paranoid of seeming like anything but a bull-headed man, it was another way of getting her into his arms where she needed to be.

Sari finally nodded and hiccupped miserably, letting him lead her back to the couch. She immediately cuddled into his chest and sniffled for a few minutes and his arms, skinny but still custom-ordered for her and only her, wrapped tightly around her back. He rocked her, feeling not manly but important. He'd often, in the back of his mind, been somewhat grateful she was home-schooled, because his chances for jealousy—for crippling insecurity--were kept to a minimum. Like he… couldn't trust her to be around handsome guys or something, but that was stupid. Beyond stupid.

She was with him because she liked him, and even if she did go to his school, with all those other cool guys who would want her like the newest car model, she would still stay with him—and even if she did ever stray, he wouldn't let her go without a fight. Already, he couldn't quite imagine life without her.

"Are you really sorry?" she asked from the depths of his yellow hoodie, straightening to give him a hard, puffy-eyed look. She looked pretty even when angry with him, he thought in something close to wonder as he cleared a wet strand of hair from her heart-shaped face.

"Sorry as someone can be and not turn into a pile of scrap on the spot," Bumblebee croaked, pillowing his cheek on her shoulder with a puppy-dog expression that Sari didn't even need to see. She chuckled and hugged him, finally sighing.

"Okay," she whispered, and that ended it. Bumblebee sagged with relief, mind utterly blown from their first argument. He could practically feel the smoke curling up from his ears.

"Can I get you some ice-cream?" he asked, drawing away and smiling as minutely as he could. Sari wiped at her eyes again and gave him something that, even without the puffy eyes, would have been three steps short of a death glare.

"Do you actually have the money this time?"

It was like she'd slapped him across the face. His smile disappeared in an instant. He was a horrible boyfriend.

"I got… paid last week. Promise."

He looked painfully defeated, and miserable besides that, which was satisfying in a twisted, horrible way—much like seeing a (very naughty) puppy get kicked in the face. Twice. Regardless of her questionable moral fiber, it made her ease up. Sari let out a shuddering breath, kissed him on the cheek and twined her hand in his.

"Okay."

Bumblebee didn't know much about storms, but he was lucky enough to experience a stretch of calm both after and before. Swallowing both his pride and jealousy, he actually spoke with the twins later that week and they were ridiculously friendly with him, pronouncing his name _almost_ right. They even taught him a new trick on their skateboards and all the kids at school looked at the previously unimportant blond in awe for at least a day, restoring some of the (relatively harmless) puff to his undersized chest. Sari saw him three times that week and spent an hour curled in his lap two of those times—and what's more, she was hanging out after school and talking to other girls. She looked happy, which made him happy.

For a boy with insanely complex needs and a mountain of insecurities, all was surprisingly well in the world.


	3. Extenuating Circumstances

A/N: Yaaaaaaaay guilt posting XD I'm so sorry! I promise I'll have Partners updated by next week, this part is just difficult as hell to write.

Also, SORRYSORRYSORRY that little whiny gay blond punk snuck into the back door of my brain again. Sorry. On the plus side, IRONHIDE AND RODIMUS!

I'm a little in love with (this? My? Their?) TFA Rodimus. WHYYYYYY didn't we see more of his team in the show, WHYYYY? They looked so promising!! I wish I could toy with the Rodimus-Ironhide-Brawn team dynamic here, even add Hot Shot as some sort of doofus coffee-fetching lackey who really, really likes jam and has chronic shoulder pains. HEEEEEEEE.

I had to do this. Sorry in advance.

_Characters: Rodimus Prime, Anicon, brief Ironhide_

_Pairings: It's a seekrit!_

* * *

Extenuating Circumstances

* * *

The building was lit as bright as day, looking more like a playpen or a decorated warehouse than a nightclub once deprived of the proper strobe-lit black. The male patrons milled around, all in escalating states of panic: there had been a shooting and everyone was required to stay in the area for questioning. The team on call, three men strong, searched the club; their Prime, a tall man with red-blond hair and a strong stride, was interviewing the witnesses alongside them. He never cared to be above his team.

His first witness, a petite blond boy, was shaking madly with his head in his hands, an ugly scar of spilled liquid down his dress shirt. With a few tips he learned from the witness-relations panel, Rodimus calmed the young man down to an acceptable degree. After they had reached the 'verbalizing' stage, further instinct told him a bracing touch would be appreciated; the blond practically swooned into it, allowing himself to be led back onto the chair he had nearly fallen out of earlier.

"What's your name?"

"A-anicon," the boy whispered, staring down at the floor with wide eyes. No one had been injured, admittedly, but Rodimus knew it was still a terrifying experience to be involved in a shooting of any degree. The panic and the swell of the crowd in such a closed environment, the fear of being caught underfoot or simply in the way—it was horrifying. Rodimus nodded, studying the young man with a patient expression.

"I'm Rodimus Prime, first Prime of the Detroit Police Department. Can you describe to me what happened here tonight, Anicon?"

Anicon swallowed several times, looking more than pathetic as he swiped his nose on his shirtsleeve, and began to do so. He stuttered and fretted madly at the cuffs of his baby-blue button-down shirt, trying to get out a single sentence for a good fifteen seconds, then stopped and pressed a hand to his chest, squeezing his eyes shut.

"C-can I have a bag? Please?" he gasped, tips of his nose and lips turning bright pink. Rodimus' eyebrows went up and he went to talk to the bartender, returning in a bare minute with a lunch sack. The witness snatched the proffered bag up onto his face, inhaling shakily for a few moments and muttering, "I'm s-sorry, really sorry. Mild asthma."

"No problem," Rodimus assured him firmly, waiting.

The young man explained everything with a shocking attention to detail—unknown to the Prime, he had actually spent the whole night simply sitting and watching everyone dance, too shy to partake of it himself. He did well, piteous stutter only worsening when he described the actual shooting.

"And that's everything?"

"Everything I can remember," Anicon managed hastily, freeing his mouth from the bag for the third time. He was a little calmer after recounting the story to someone who could do something about it: Rodimus' authority was tangible and comforting. They would do everything they could to catch the shooter. It was certain—and it made his delicate blood pressure go down a few blessed notches. He breathed out, smiling shakily.

At the other end of the club, a clump of people with cameras stood together. A huge man wearing a red t-shirt searched the crowd with his eyes until he found his Prime, then waved his arm in the air.

"Hey, Roddy—get'cher ass over here, I think we got somethin'."

"One second, Ironhide," Rodimus called back, making a few more notes. He wrapped the statement up, date and time, and prepared to look up and thank the young man for his cooperation, but was beaten to the first and last word.

"Roddy?" Anicon repeated with a fitful smile, twirling his empty martini glass between his tiny fingers; the relative shadow of their corner hid his crippling blush. "How d-did you earn that nickname?"

Scanning his notes, Rodimus started to chuckle, maybe beg off a story to get onto whatever needed his attention, but his face blanked when he saw the shy, meaningful stare the witness was giving him. With an instinct only borne of many years as a crime-scene investigator, he noted many things, such as the very _sultry_ angle of 'Anicon's' blue eyes under his cornhusk lashes as he, a very straight man, stood there, tall, handsome and well-muscled, with thick hands and sideburns and very well-styled red hair. In the middle of a gay club named The Purple Rabbit.

"Well, I—what?" he asked, dazed.

"Just. You know." Anicon laughed nervously, then teased the plastic toothpick between his pink lips, looking down at the floor. "Wondering."

Then First Prime Rodimus realized that, today of all days, he just so happened to be wearing a very, very pink shirt that his mom had gotten him a year ago, purchased from a shop infamously frequented by gay men.

"Oh god. You think. _Oh_," he said brilliantly, not at all awkward as he edged away from the diminutive little blond with the pink martini as though he were backing away from the shooter they were called in for. He bared his teeth nervously, focusing on forming complete sentences. "I'm sorry—I can't—I _don't_--I have to—my team needs me."

It wasn't that he was disgusted, because he wasn't homophobic. He wasn't. He was just murderously _uncomfortable_—much like he would have been if, say, a very large German dominatrix had attempted to come on to him with a toothpick angled sexually between her lips. The same, yet different.

Still, too much. _Too much_.

"Thankyouforyourhelp!" Rodimus managed to eke out, packing his notepad to his very pink chest pocket and practically dashing over to the safe, blessedly dense and masculine circle of 'Hide's presence. He only exhaled once he was by the bulky man's side, who (alongside smelling so, so comfortingly of Axe) looked fairly nonplussed to be near so many weeping fairies in fishnets and muscle-shirts. If he entertained any internal conflict, it was vented by chewing determinedly at his mangled toothpick.

Oh, how he chewed.

* * *

"If there's anything else I c-can help you with, let me, um, let me know!"

This last bit was called over the crowd towards the handsome redhead, but the Prime didn't even hear it: he was too engrossed in the latest find, fairy-tale prince profile grim and oh-so intelligent. He nodded every so often, finally giving orders and scattering with his men. Another catch, gone.

Back at the bar, Anicon sighed, pouting deeply into his empty glass and bending his toothpick in two. This was just ridiculous. Who did he have to murder to get a boyfriend around here?


	4. Poison

A/N: Different, but I like :3 See if you can guess who it is before I tell you.

PS, has nothing to do with my excursion to Italy. Was written before then. Swear.

* * *

Poison

* * *

Somewhere, underneath the concrete of Italy, there survived a man.

He was a tall man, emaciated and wiry with a disproportionate barrel ribcage and a thin, oft-grubby sleeveless white shirt stretched over that. As though under a layer of sour milk, the sharp black tattoo under his collarbone shone through. He had protuberant sewage-green eyes and small, hard teeth, and long, long fingers stacked with rings—unless he was working, in which he only had glossy burn marks raccoon-tailing his fingers as he picked and pinched and measured. His lesson.

Chemicals get caught underneath rings, much like people get caught underneath fingernails.

He used to live above ground. Once he had no need for vents for grey-green fumes--regarded grates as nothing more than grime-caked municipal scenery, not an escape hatch for evidence. He had been chased underground by—the name? Foreign in nature. Sumdac. Mechanical Revolution. They had no need for chemists, now, in his Italy. They had no need of maintenance workers in America; no need of farmers in Russia.

Isaac Sumdac helped all, and soon, the world would have no need of people.

His apartment was bare, his workshop full but meticulously arranged. He did not like people, did not like things or places, but this man, he liked fish.

He abided fish.

Fish were easy to take care of, yet he forgot to feed fish.

One by one they rose to the top of their little tanks like slimy marshmallows in the green bubbling water, rotting there, but his sculpted hawk nose was so ravaged from years distilling dangerous compounds that he smelled it as little more than a yellow-grey musk… nothing compared to the caustic sizzle of cocaine in his nostrils, though he had never touched a key or a card or a straw save to gather his own for customers too impatient—too rotting in their own itching grey skins--to wait.

He crafted, assembling designer poisons bond by bond, but never partook. He had the blessing of being an informed and untouched dealer, aware of every repercussion of the downy white powder he rattled off cooking sheets and scraped into identical clean baggies. He knew every concoction intimately: down to the stinging molecules, down to the area of the brain they would target. Still, even in his gas-mask, he could smell it. In his pores, he could smell it, cementing into his thin oily skin and questing for a blood-hot highway to into his barrel chest. He, too, was only human—a human that wearied of worrying over his slow, dragging death by the drug and sweat magma dripping down his chest and arms in the stifling lab.

It stung. Tingled. Burned. He survived.

He could not craft if he was in an altered state. He was popular. There was much demand. It was the passion of his work—and the vision of those that came to him, the ability to track their dirty lives like twenty-four-hour fruit flies as they convulsed in their own filth with a maddening, spiraling buzz--that kept him from the very crystals he created.

He thought of them as test subjects, really. Those who stumbled to him, paying him to experiment on them. Young ones, old ones; wide subject diversity. They never noticed any swap in consistency, nor the occasional placebo, and there was no board to review his progress.

In a way, Sumdac did help all.

The cheap lights buzzed above the two men, like the flies; like his customers, whining for just one more milligram for their euro. Fish rotted. The American fingered the surprisingly clean, glossy packets of powder, carrot-stub fingers flicking them down to the table when he was done. Oilslick knew the wandering look: guarded with a touch of contempt, as though there were better dealers down in 90210. The man, a distributor by the smell and silkworm sheen of his suit, was searching for a new fad, straight from his bottles.

His big American picked up a particular packet: one that looked like lethal cinnamon, speckled with larger granules of dead sugar. It seemed like something for a cake, if it didn't have such an ominous burning red-orange hue that spoke of the impending anorexic bloom in the brain. The rapture death, as though one's existence were rusting away. The American held it up for him—thinking, no doubt, that he would mutter something in Italian and scrounge up a price tag. Instead, Oilslick's flaccid lips split into an ugly grin and he leaned on the table.

"You wish to know what I call that one?" he asked slowly, accent thick but precise. The American gave the packet a side-glance, unknowing of the god powder he had in his hand—the one which Oilslick had drawn the chemical structure of long, long before he perfected it. In summer nights, smelling of stale sweat, he woke and scribbled under a bare yellow bulb; the floor of his yellowed room was covered in yellow notebook pages, spider-webbed and ciphered by a true artist.

The exiled chemist slicked his thick tongue over his teeth, lingering on the taste of the gold cap, and expelled the man's answer in a greedy hiss.

"Cosmic rust."


	5. What It's Like

A/N: I tried, guys. Seriously, I tried. Me Nicki no good at them Optimus/Blackarachnia. Especially since OC-verse made her into such an emo crraaaaaack-whhooooooore.

Optimus is kinda adorable to me now. I have to say, for a bit of characterization bonus, that OP doesn't know how to conquer his own problems, so he goes to town on other people's problems. Prowl senses his micro-managing hypocrisy in some way, which is why they don't get along: they're both in some stage of denial and Prime's busy-bodying pisses him off—at least Prowl is miserable but _keeps it to himself, yes_?

OH YAY LOVE TRIANGLE. Love-struck Sentinel is the cutest thing ever, even if he's an unholy jerk now.

_Characters: Optimus Prime, Blackarachnia; brief Sentinel, Bee, Prowl_

_Pairings: one-sided Optimus/Blackarachnia(Elita-1), implied one-sided Sentinel/Elita-1_

_Notes: Serious implied dubcon. Ignorant Beast-Wars tie-in. Melodramatic dialogue. Occurs right after Bad Decisions._

* * *

What It's Like

* * *

Optimus Prime, third Prime of the DPD, sat in his bed at some odd hour of the evening, dressed only in pajama pants. His play-list—acoustic alternative, unremarkable and mild--had run on empty long ago, but he couldn't muster the willpower to get up off the rumpled bed and go restart it, swap lists or shut the player off entirely. It hummed vacantly, glowing blue. He stared down at the off-white sheets, sighing heavily after a moment and letting his head fall to his bent knee.

He closed his eyes so he could see it better. It? The movie that had been running in his head all day.

"_Optimus." _

"_Prowl?"_

He had said it quietly, nervously, like he had been waiting on edge for days ever since he spilled to Sentinel. Knowing this was coming.

And did it come.

"_How dare you."_

Being of such good heart, Optimus nearly locked up for a split second and felt guilt, knowing what was on the line for the other man. Then came the noble sternness, reinforcing his ivory leader's spine, because he shouldn't be nervous. It was wrong, what Prowl was doing. He knew it was wrong (and he wasn't alone in this but it only added desperate red fire to Prowl's attack), but that didn't stop him from taking a step back when the smaller man rushed him with a level of bitterness Optimus never would have thought Prowl capable of.

Prowl said this should _not have happened_. Optimus agreed. With all of him, he agreed, and didn't know quite how it had happened in the first place.

Prowl had been quiet for the past week. Well-behaved, somewhat serene, like before all this happened. A false sense of security descended, so gratefully, because perhaps Prowl, logical and reserved Prowl, had abandoned anything to do with the man in the musclecar and kept it to the office.

Optimus stayed quiet in his own right. In some measure, he wanted to protect the young man, to give him a chance—mostly to avoid taking it to a superior, as Optimus knew the repercussions of fraternizing and doing off-record investigations. Then Sentinel _told him_ and the grinning thug looked the same in his description and as through the evil red glass that Prowl got behind and slammed the door, and his anxiety hit the roof.

Saturday. Prowl didn't come home that night. In that moment, face bleaching and _giving it away_ in front of his old Academy friend, the Prime was worried: worried sick like he should have been for the past week. Now he had an entirely different reason to worry.

"_Dude, OP. What happened to Prowl's room?"_

_He looked over his shoulder, knife poised to spread mustard on his open sandwich. Bee wandered into the bare-bones kitchen, bare feet slapping on the concrete, armed with a candy bar in one hand and an energy drink in the other. The Prime was distracted by the impulse to gripe at him for his poor diet choices until he actually _heard_ what the boy said._

"_What—how so?" Optimus asked, putting down the knife and turning with more than a hint of anxiety. Bumblebee gave him a quizzical_ _frown, eyebrow popping up as he took another swig of his putrid yellow Creature._

"_You haven't seen it? It's, like, gutted. Did you kick him out or something?"_

Half of him said it was only a matter of time, but he tried very hard not to listen to that part. He had half-sprinted to the room, stripped to the walls like the bare concrete cell it was, and put his head in his hands as it _dawned on him_. He murmured something miserable and ignored his little cousin calling after him as he left to go do… anything to get out of the Project, now one ninja short. He ended up taking a walk to the park, mind running in circles.

That had been two days ago. He'd hardly seen the other officer at work and he didn't know how things stood, much less what he'd done to provoke it and what he should do _now_ to end it. To be honest, he didn't know where his duty as a Prime began and his personal judgment ended. He'd never been faced with a situation before where they weren't intertwined, and to have it stem from _Prowl_, of all people…

He rubbed at his head, lamenting what seemed to be an early lesson in parenting: dealing with Prowl was a combination of balancing legal ramifications, testing his own faith in what he knew to be a good officer and corralling a rebellious teenager. Optimus was so deep in his own exhausted mind that barely heard the knock at his door, drowsily raising his head only to stare at the wall.

"Come in."

The door opened then shut again. Optimus' skin prickled at the lack of announcement—Ratchet's gruff complaints about the leaky faucet or Bee's whining—as much as the double click, and then he heard her, hoarse and velvet.

"Hello, Optimus."

He turned so quickly the sheets flared around his legs. A young woman leaned against the wall of his room, purple tights run so severely they were little more than webs on her white legs. A short black dress girded her heavy hips and long purple sleeves hid her emaciated arms, all torn in some way, matching the long nails that click-tick-ticked on the grey wall.

She smiled at him. It didn't reach her eyes, barricaded as they were by rings of smoky black makeup and exhaustion.

"How did you--get in?" Optimus asked faintly, deep voice leaving him as her cold presence set into the room, bringing the concrete hard and fast and close around him.

"Oh, that cute little blond kid with the big mouth answered after a few knocks. You know, the one who thinks I'm your girlfriend. Or hopes I'll be his, " she answered lazily. She waved her pale hand as she looked around the small room like it was new to her, though she had visited—made—the prison many times before. She paused, then went on in a poisonous, smirking croak. "How are you?"

"I—you shouldn't be here," he said, voice thick.

"And yet you don't ask me to leave."

She moved from the wall, expression only darkening as Optimus' gaze fell a notch, incapable of facing her.

"I may not be the most upright of citizens, Optimus, but at least I don't prevaricate through my teeth. Blather all you will, but I know what you want," she said, voice hard. Looking at his half-bowed head, her lips twisted maliciously. "And where that fails, I know what you'll stomach."

It was true. She knew in the only way that mattered: experience.

He heard her footsteps—high heels, always the same glossy black boots—and the rustle as she sat on the bed, but he couldn't hold back the flinch as her hand slid around his muscled arm. His mind was still tearing through ways to get her out. When her black nails stung him, he pulled his arm away from her and held it tightly, face twitching tensely; her smile was still a force of pleasant decay in her voice as she leaned into his ear.

"Oh, come on. Surely I'm not that ugly, Optimus?"

"_Elita_," he burst out, nausea rushing him with her husk pressing so close.

"Don't call me that!" she snapped, sizing a fistful of bedsheets and digging her nails in, doing the same on the man's leg. She leaned in, full mouth contorted with fury. "Don't you _dare_ call me that! My name is Blackarachnia now and you know it!"

Her dark brown eyes were wide, somehow oily, the pupils reduced to shuddering pinpricks. There was an undertone to her scent. Something bitter, beyond the cigarettes. Optimus pressed past the five-pointed pain in his leg and answered her grip, taking hold of her shoulder and searching her face intensely.

"You're—you've smoked something. Recently," he murmured, eyes widening. She looked at him, at the concern and fear in his face, and _changed_.

"We all have our little escapes," she sighed and didn't sigh, mocking him with her overt enunciation to hide the slur sticking her tongue; to obscure and pronounce the daze through which she didn't navigate but stumbled and thrashed and struck out blindly at the warped shadows around her.

This close, he couldn't help but see her for what she was. Her full mouth was a shade of red so dark it was nearly black, like a violent dribble of ink, and the cheap blue-black dye in her hair had grown out, framing dry blond bangs and matching roots. Either color served to make her look like a sick ghost and crucified her true-blond's complexion.

Somewhere underneath all that, the young detective with the ponytail laughed with him in the Academy, doll-nose wrinkling as Sentinel tried to hold her hand under the table.

"I can get you help," he whispered tensely, hand tightening on her sleeve. Alight again, she wrenched it away and something ripped as she screamed in his face.

"I don't _need help_, yours or anyone else's!"

She didn't stop. A part of Optimus caved violently as she stood up and shouted at the wall and the man behind her, voice cracking again and again. Jarred, terrified, mourning, he stole a glance at the door. In as little time as it took for him to worry over the scraping pain that exposure would bring to them both, because somehow he still believed that he could handle it and it was his _duty_ to handle it, she had taken a few strides away from him and the bed and threatened to leave. He could nearly hear the heavy drugs sluicing through her veins and oozing out of her pores, but then she froze, eyes horribly wide and unfocused.

"No," she whispered suddenly, turning. Her hands crawled over her bare shoulders. "I lied. I don't like… lying to you, baby."

Clack clack clack.

Curling on the bed, she leaned forward and a necklace slithered out of her dress and swung from her green-veined neck. It was a tiny black widow spinning on a chain, all six thorny legs viciously rendered. A favor from Tarantulas, leader of Las Aranhas. The Spiders. The Portuguese gang that had… Optimus reached for her hand, feeling his stomach lurch painfully.

"Eli—"

"You know when I could've used your help, Optimus? When I was stuck in that filthy basement. When they were laughing at me and drawing—the knife—across—my throat. Telling me you wouldn't come back for me and I was _dead_." She took a breath and wilted forward, nose brushing Optimus' damp temple. "I should have known it was the truth by how much it hurt."

Real people didn't talk like that but she wasn't a real person: she was a clip stuck on loop, she was a bleeding caricature with a bottomless black well of vengeance. She spared no detail. Her wrists were covered in scars, little razor-thin stripes and every word was whittled to wound. No matter how rote it became, how theatric, he caved. Every time, he caved.

He was slain, irrationally incapacitated by the rush of crippling regret and never-good-enoughs that her visits spawned. She was suffering. That was the one fact he could see.

Every time, no matter how it began or ended, his tender heart wouldn't permit anything but absolute cringing surrender, especially when the three of them shouldn't have been out there in the first place. He shouldn't have let Sentinel follow the lead without bringing in Magnus, he should have stopped them from entering the hideout without backup.

If he had stopped them, they wouldn't have grabbed her and dragged her into the basement.

The gunshot. The true fear on Sentinel's frat-boy face; the pain that would lead him to sob throatily into Optimus' shirt and then punch him in the gut, cursing him for killing her. Optimus _let him_ and he took it like the retribution it was, saliva and wordless apologies slipping down his chin as the real Primes arrived and rushed by them and into the house, all blaring white searchlights and screeching megaphones--

He should have gone back for her. He should have sacrificed anything, even himself, but he never should have abandoned her.

There on the bed, like so many nights before, Blackarachnia crushed him down to nothing—or she offered the cinderblocks and he piled them on his back like the devil-damned, god-blessed martyr he was—and Optimus became quiet, deathly quiet. She took his chin in her hand as tenderly as a mother, eyes almost misty.

"There, now. Isn't it better when we're honest with one another?" she whispered.

He took her hand with shaking fingers, closing his eyes. She caressed his bare chest with the pointed nails she would drive into his skin as he tried to offer himself to her, some sort of sacrifice to fill the hole he tore in her. It was never enough to carve his skin and hear him plead, however, because she kept coming back. She kissed him with her dark mouth. He breathed in her poison cigarette perfume as she pressed close like the woman she should have been, then shoved him back onto the bed like the monster she was, all the while hoping this would change someday.

His actions with Prowl were inexcusable, true--but he knew what it was like to have a secret.


	6. Whole Lotta Love

A/N: An online bio claimed that Strika was Lugnut's consort. SOMETHING HAD TO COME OF IT.

Nonsense moment. Also more SarixBee I HAVE TO STOPPPPP. But they're the only healthy relationship in my 'verse, how sad is this? D:

_Characters: Sari, Bee, Lugnut, Strika_

_Pairings: SarixBee, StrikaxLugnut_

_Warnings: If you don't know what a banana hammock is, don't look it up. Save yourself the trauma._

* * *

Whole Lotta Love

* * *

If it wasn't already apparent, Bumblebee was a lucky, lucky boy.

Far from having to grit through chickflicks to gain any measure of compliance from his girlfriend, Sari often blew off his movie choices as too boring, opting instead for the pictures with more explosions, more cars and, hopefully, more zombies. God, did that girl love zombies.

Once he realized that he didn't have to tread carefully around her—he could treat her as a real person, not a perfumed, alien, Faberge egg _girl_—he plunged in full-force, unafraid of proposing anything from grunge-punk concerts to haunted houses. This found the two teens, after three months of ascending subject intensity, at a tag-team wrestling match, each armed with a hotdog and a two-quart soda and, by now, incredibly hoarse voices.

The two front-page stars, a German woman and an American man who apparently met and fell in love and went on to create their own wrestling team (didn't everyone?), had been showing off their brutality with little to no hesitation. Grace or rules did not seem to be their forte and they kept getting marshaled for their potshots, to the intense delight of the screaming crowd.

The real furor began, however, when the other team's macho man got the upper hand and decked the man, Lugnut, to the floor, and set to wailing on him with glee. Bumblebee was almost standing in his seat screaming when the woman, huge as a house with a gratuitously furred upper lip, stood and raised her hamburger fists to the sky, hollering, "_Nutters_!" and charging into the ring to strangle the 'The Slapinator'.

She ripped the offender away from her thousand-pound love like a fly or a puppy and eclipsed the relative stick of his neck with her sausage fingers of doom, rattling and swinging him from side to side, flat face and thick drooping lips both red with rage.

"You harm my Nutters, you _die_!"

All the little referees, like white-and-black striped ants next to Godzilla, were struggling to contain her and Bumblebee lost it laughing, falling back into his chair and kicking his sneakered feet. He finally muffled his glee in his beanie by tugging it over his face, making Sari look over at his ridiculous display.

"Just what is your malfunction?"

"I was just—ha! I was just thinking, I'd hate to be around when they get busy!"

At Sari's uncomprehending (if wary) look, Bee clapped his hands, gesturing to Strika, who was now cradling Lugnut's bulbously-muscled, limp-fish body in her lap, ranting very, very angrily in German (and probably accomplishing what the opposite team had failed to do by means of her doughy, ceaseless face-hugging).

"That wouldn't be a bump in the night—more like a seismic shock!"

Erupting into secondary sniggers, Bumblebee muffled himself in his hoodie this time; Sari chuckled faintly, mostly at how much of a doofus her boyfriend was, then looked down at the love-avenging chaos with an odd expression, head tilted.

"Don't laugh. I think it's kind of… sweet." She winced, trying not to let her mind _go there_, especially as Strika, bison shoulders shining with sweat, heaved Lugnut up into her arms and stormed out of the ring, crunching through a partition as though it were made of uncooked spaghetti. "If a little plus-sized."

As Bumblebee just kept laughing (having managed to crack himself up again in the confines of his own head) she gave him a wry look he didn't see, then pillowed her chin on her hand and said innocently, to the rafters: "Maybe it's better than pint-sized love—who knows?"

"_What_."

It was amazing, how fast he stopped laughing. Unable to help herself, Sari giggled and slid her arm around his shoulders, Bee giving a childish sour-candy pucker when she kissed his cheek.

"Don't get in a huff," she cooed. "I was just kidding."

"If pint-sized love isn't good enough for you, th—I'm not pint-sized!"

"Oh, come on. It'd make a great drawing point to our team," she said brightly, plying him with a sparkling smile. She pointed toward the ruckus where Strika and Lugnut had exited. "Don't you want to make our own wrestling tag-team of love?"

Bee bit his lip for a moment, grousing, then pointed down at the ring.

"Only if your uniform looks like that."

A girl wearing a bikini (claiming no more than two square inches of fabric and an alarming amount of string) strutted across the stage with a sign announcing the next match, legs tight and bronze above red heels. Sari rolled her eyes, grabbing the back of his head and directing his eyes toward the next team.

"Then yours will look like that."

"A banana hammock?! Ugh!" he shuddered, tongue out, then stopped and stroked his (incredibly hairless) chin. "…I'd make it look good."

"You keep thinking that, Bee," Sari mumbled around her straw, eyes toward the rafters. "You keep thinking that."


	7. Thursday Night and Nothing's On

A/N: This is an exchange I just KNOW would happen. I know the text format is EVIL, but I figure I can sneak in one of those. Please don't paddle me, guys? :3

God, Sari's just so intelligent. How did she end up with Bee? If anyone typed like that to me, I'd dump them in three seconds…

_Characters: Sari, Bee_

_Pairings: SarixBee, slight hinted SarixProwl_

* * *

Thursday Night and Nothing's On

* * *

**yellowlightening84** signed on.

Accept **Chat Invitation** from **yellowlightening84**?

_yellowlightening84_: hey baybeeeeeee hows my g/f

_RobotChick_: Oh shut up, I'm in the middle of calculus ;) What do you want?

_yellowlightening84_: nuthin just wonduring if u wanted 2 go 2 that new movie thast' out?

_RobotChick_: What, Terrace Anchor?

_yellowlightening84_: wat??/

_RobotChick_: Haha, I'll save you from googling it: the one about the gay guys and the land-rush?

_yellowlightening84_: oh hell no! NOOOOOOO,,,,

_RobotChick_: Thought so, oh open-minded one -_-

_yellowlightening84_: yeah no way I was thingking more like Bloody Road. The one with teh zombees and the sycho pplz. haha terrace anchor, that would b more Prowl's game.

_RobotChick_: Yeah, that sounds like a great one!

_RobotChick_: Wait, excuse me? Bee, you really shouldn't take shots at Prowl like that. It's really rude AND he knows more about computers than you ever will—he's probably hacking your account right now and reading this. (Hi Prowl!)

_yellowlightening84_: oh no im serius.

_RobotChick_: … Meaning?

_yellowlightening84_: u don't kno??? Prowls gay he told me

_RobotChick_: WHAT???

_RobotChick_: You can't be serious.

_yellowlightening84_: dead serios XD

_RobotChick_: WHATTTTTT?????

_RobotChick_: Oh god. Oh. God.

_yellowlightening84_: dude what's ur problem?

_RobotChick_: NOTHING. Like that, I mean! I'm fine with… oh what the hell, I'm in MOURNING.

_yellowlightening84_: mournng?

_yellowlightening84_: *mourning?

_RobotChick_: He's gay. I should have known. He's too PRETTY to date a girl.

_RobotChick_: What a loss.

_RobotChick:_ Well I'm sure he's going to make some man out there really happy…

_yellowlightening84_: what r u talkng about I knew he was gay when he put up that 'hang in tere' kittan poster in his room i mean wtf???/// lol

_RobotChick_: UGH. You don't get it, Bee! Hundreds of girls are crying the world over!

_yellowlightening84_: naww thay would only do that 4 me :)

_RobotChick_: Why does everything always end up being about you, Bee?

_yellowlightening84_: well ecsuxe me………….

_yellowlightening84_: do u realy lieke him taht much?

_RobotChick_: Okay, don't get pissy.

_yellowlightening84_: Im NTO PISSSY

_RobotChick_: When your rate of typos eclipses the usual 55%, it's a pretty reliable sign that you're pissy.

_RobotChick_: And that was like, 112%.

_yellowlightening84_: up urs

_RobotChick_: Awww I adore you too Bumblebee :3

_yellowlightening84_: Prowl is gay hoe can u lick him

_RobotChick_: assuming that's a typo (and not just a simple matter of a tongue, some skin and physics)

_RobotChick_: Sorry, pressed enter. I ADMIRED him, okay, I didn't LIKE him. He's a cool guy but I like YOU. Whose girlfriend am I? YOURS. Stop being pissy and NO it's not impossible to have a crush on a gay guy!! In fact its fifty percent more likely!!! Lance Bass, anyone?!

_yellowlightening84_: U HAV A CRUSH ON HIM

_yellowlightening84_: U SAID IT

_yellowlightening84_: U SAID IT

_yellowlightening84_: U SAID IT

_yellowlightening84_: wait whoos Lance Bass

_RobotChick_: DO NOT. You are IMPOSSIBLE and I have calculus to do, okay?!

_RobotChick_: GOODBYE

_yellowlightening84_: okokokokok whatev XD

_yellowlightening84_: wait wait r we still on 4 bloody road????

_RobotChick_: ………….

_RobotChick_: If you can manage not to interrupt me for THREE MORE INTEGRALS, we're on.

_yellowlightening84_: deeeeeeeeeeeaaaalaa hehh heh he :)/

_RobotChick_: …Hav u ever considurd typing lesons, BumbullB?

_yellowlightening84_: wat??/

**RobotChick** signed off.

**yellowlightening84** signed off.


	8. Marks of Age

A/N: This is one of those 'parallel moments' with Partners that will either make you smile or creep you out XD I could've put it in Odd Couple, but it's more Torque-centric than I'm comfortable with. This happens after chapter 20, when they all KINDA start hanging out together. MANNN I love this one!

Also—a plea?

I neeeeeeed an idea for OC-verse Blurr. I have HIM in my head, but I've never loved him very much so I don't know what kind of shenanigans he and Bee (and possibly a very reluctant Bulkhead) can get into. So lob your fic ideas at me and I'll wear my lucky Velcro Suit so hopefully one of them will stick :D HE NEEDS LOVE.

And as for characters you want to show up, I've been asked several times about Jazz, but I must ask you to have faith. He will turn up eventually, and in a way that might make your eyebrows zing into your hair. Otherwise, I'm still interested in possible character suggestions!

_Characters: Torque, Lockdown, Prowl_

_Pairings: Implied LockdownxProwl_

_Warnings: Female meltdowns and Torque has a filthy mouth sometimes._

* * *

Marks of Age

* * *

One very fine and uneventful day, Prowl came home after work to find Lockdown sitting on the couch. It would have been a completely normal occasion had Torque not been sitting next to him, practically rocking back and forth and clutching a cold cup of coffee topped with a dissolved spoonful of whipped cream. The young officer stopped in the doorway, staring impolitely as possible.

Lockdown looked genuinely impatient until he walked in—because as annoying as it was that she came to _him_ to whine about it, now there was a way to take the piss out of her because he had an audience.

"Is something wrong?" Prowl asked hesitantly, when Lockdown didn't offer any sort of explanation (save for a very, very foul grin that just _begged_ him to ask her himself). Torque jumped as though she hadn't realized he was four feet away from her, then shook her head slowly.

"I don't want to talk about it," she intoned, staring blankly over her coffee cup.

"She got a tattoo on her ass," Lockdown snickered oh-so helpfully. "Tramp stamp."

Prowl eyes practically bulged: he couldn't help it. A paltry month though they'd known each other, he'd always thought of her as a rather… dignified stripper. This was new.

"Shut. Up," she whispered hoarsely, not even looking at her tormenter, then turned to the prudently-silent-but-still-unnerved-as-hell officer after a beat with soulless eyes, devoid of makeup or any usual glimmer. "Last night. Bad night. Got drunk. Wandered around, got stupid ideas. Passed out on the tattooists table before I could come to my senses. Woke up with a horrible pain on my butt and now it's there. On me. Forever."

The echoing doom and gloom of her husky, melodramatic voice—it wouldn't be at all out of place in a noir narration—was broken by Lockdown's incredulous snort. It was clear that if she were a man, he would have slapped her on the back of the head.

"Shut your mouth. You can have it buzzed off in a week after the ink settles," he grumbled with the nonchalant air of one who had it done at least a dozen times—probably even _before_ the ink settled, and he didn't have any scars to show for it, thanks kindly.

"I'm weeping over the fact I ever considered doing it, not that it's reversible!" she hissed, coffee sloshing alarmingly in her cup as she slammed it down on the table.

"What… is it?" Prowl ventured as politely as he could, a little unprofessionally interested in her lapse in judgment. Evidently it was the wrong thing to say.

"A… a butterfly," she whimpered, and abruptly started to cry. "A butterfly on my butt! How did that happen? I'm not a—not a sorority girl, I'm thirty-four! Oh my fucking god, how screwed up am I?!"

She turned and buried her wet face in Lockdown's shoulder and set up wailing, long and loud. Lockdown simply allowed her to do it, weathering the sudden water-works without a change in expression or any move to comfort her.

"She's a little drunk," he grunted over her screams. He nodded toward the abandoned coffee. "Tryin' to sober up before work."

"_My ass hurts_!" she keened, sobbing in earnest and knotting her fingers into Lockdown's ratty t-shirt.

"So I gathered," Prowl said faintly, moving over to sit beside her through, sadly, no force of empathy but the same childish curiosity that moved him to ask after what it was. "She enunciates remarkably well when inebriated."

After a few more minutes of noisy female catharsis, Prowl very, very, very, _very_ hesitantly petted her back at Lockdown's wordless urging, not knowing quite what level of physical comfort was acceptable with acquaintances such as themselves. His dilemma was solved quite suddenly and violently when she flopped over and latched onto him with the force and technique of a monkey, not quite done sobbing her head off at how ungracefully she was aging. That gave Lockdown leave to disentangle himself and callously leave Prowl to do the comforting, which he was excruciatingly _un_comfortable with, but all expectations for mollifying statements and back-pats were fairly dropped when Torque suddenly passed out into a deep sleep right on his chest. Prowl felt as though he had been beaten about the head with pots and pans: somewhere inside of him, he was still _ringing_ from the sound of that wail.

Once she was unconscious (and therefore easy to deal with), Lockdown returned and carried her damsel-style to his—their—bed, then was forced to hold her in said position for at least ten minutes while Prowl protested and scrambled for clean sheets, refusing to put her on the soiled ones because it was just common decency—especially as he knew _how_ soiled they were and his face burned at the thought of it.

"Did you see it?" he asked when she was settled and breathing softly on the old queen bed, assuming the somewhat hushed air of one speaking of a forbidden relic.

"Yeah. She dropped her pants when she first came in," Lockdown grunted, scratching his head absently. Prowl's mind instantly tried to go there, but he stopped it with an iron wall, even if he'd already seen more of Torque's skin than he'd ever asked for. Lockdown shrugged and grinned slightly. "She must've shifted or something 'cos the design got knocked down a peg or three. She's got a butterfly actually sittin' in her ass-crack."

Prowl's mouth dropped open. Here he thought his existence was occasionally wretched—it was nothing compared to getting laser-tattooed in a private area. That didn't stop him, however, from chuckling when Lockdown sent her a get-well e-card with a butterfly on it, nor when his housemate read her response aloud fifteen minutes later.

_Dear Lockdown,_

_Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Tell Prowl that he can start applying for the position of 'gay best friend' because you, sir, are completely fired. I always liked boys with skin-pigment better anyways. Don't forget to bring the chips on Saturday._

_Love, Tramp Stamp_

She would be okay.


	9. Secret Agents Have More Fun

A/N: Ooooh, thank you so much for the fic idea, LlroAndum dahling! And Sunny, for the input that shaped it--here it is!

Blurr turned into some sort of teenage'd Calvin (ala Calvin and Hobbes) under my pen and he's kiiiiiiind of bone-crushingly adorable. Plus, I always love testing Bee's level of prejudice against THOSE GAY PEOPLE. He's just a teenaged idiot, but he's also on his way up because he's willing to learn.

I hope.

_Characters: Blurr, Bumblebee, Lockdown, Prowl_

_Pairings: LockdownxProwl_

_Warnings: __COMES DIRECTLY AFTER 'HERO' in Odd Couple. Please do not read without reading Hero, or it will make me sad and make YOU quite confused._

* * *

Secret Agents Have More Fun

* * *

Bee tossed down his candy wrapper, only to pick it up again at a viciously disappointed glare from an old lady. He sneered after her, then felt bad about even _that_.

He and Blurr had been hanging out for a few hours and were currently marooned in the parking lot of the arcade (they'd run out of tokens and the management had gotten pissed off after their second hour of loitering around the DDR machine). It was hard to find things to do at six-thirty on a Friday, and Bee was finally starting to feel Blurr's excess energy start to chafe at him, especially as there was no outlet for it.

Blurr, the horribly skinny boy currently experimenting with how high he could jump over a fire-hydrant while keeping his feet stuck together, was a runner at school with the severest form of ADHD known to man. He only _slowed down_ when he had exhausted himself—and that was only because he so tired that he puffed out his split-second words at half-minute intervals. The two best friends met through the running team, when Bee believed full-heartedly that he was the fastest thing in sneakers… until Blurr stole the track.

He hated the other boy intensely for a season, but Blurr, with the blind, horribly friendly impulsiveness that Bee would come to define him with, latched onto him and Bee was somehow defeated by the same speed that had provoked such envy. Bee had an unlimited 'grudge' stamina, true, but it was too exhausting to try and deny a thousand-mile-an-hour boy (especially when he couldn't understand a word of what he was supposed to be responding negatively to) so he just kept Blurr along and they became, excuse the term, fast friends.

(Bee dropped out of track team shortly thereafter. He had a nasty allergy to being bested in anything, one of his main character flaws, and he would much rather drop the whole issue than be second best, but he still went to watch Blurr run because it was a _sight_. Okay, so maybe he went to watch the girls run and Blurr was a bit of an afterthought, but he still waved encouragingly when the lanky blue, uh, _blur_ passed the stands.)

Of course, meeting someone with such a severe 'condition' tempted people like Bee to screw with said condition for their own amusement, and Blurr was too agreeable and excitable to notice Bee's classic 'scheming' expression. The one time Bumblebee got him high—it wasn't his stuff, it was Beachcomber's, they were just along for the ride—he actually slowed down into a _real person_. Unfortunately, Bee had been too busy trying to take all of his clothes off and fly to really notice, but hey, at least they knew it was possible.

At the other end of the mad scientist spectrum, screwing with the other boy's adrenaline had always been a temptation: it seemed like, given too much stimulant, Blurr would vibrate right out of his skin. There had been a horrible episode with an all-night Xbox Live-It challenge and energy drinks that Bee would have liked to forget as quickly as possible--and he would like to be the first to say that friends exist for mutual fun, but not for experimenting with via a gallon of sugary Powerthirst. That was a no-no, especially with a dude as high-strung as Blurr. He left claw marks on the _ceiling_ and something else entirely underneath the tables.

Currently, without a race to slow him down and a distraction to keep him bearable, Blurr was driving Bee crazy the same way he did everything: very quickly. That would have explained why Bee was scanning the street so intently, and why he instantly spotted a certain leather-jacketted Japanese man striding down the opposite side of the street and into a hardware store.

"Hey, it's Prowl! I never see that guy anymore," Bee exclaimed, scratching his head. He'd had some fun times with Prowl. Not that they were _mutually_ fun, but still, that booby-trapping of his desktop with gay porn was a pretty prime idea… "Hey, what's he doing?"

"Idon'tknowIcan'tseecanyousee?" Blurr buzzed, darting around him and attempting to see over his shoulders, one after the other and then back again. "Yeahit'sProwlwowheywhat'shedoinghere?!"

Prowl was out of the hardware store in record time, brown paper bag in hand. Bee's former housemate could have just been out taking a walk in the city, but it was freezing, he didn't have his bike, _and_ he had that iron look in his strangely glasses-less face that said he was on a mission that no mortal could interfere with.

"He's doing _something_, that's for sure."

"Whatwhatwhatwhat'shedoing?"

"I dunno—"

"Let'sfollowhimlikesecretagents! Likelikelikeintelligenceofficers_I'vealwayswantedtobeanintelligenceofficer_!" Blurr nearly squealed, reduced to bouncing up and down to purge the sudden burst of overdrive excitement wracking his skinny body.

"What are you, eight?" Bee scoffed, but he still pushed Blurr out of sight so he could peer around the corner of the arcade unseen—to see if Prowl was heading right onto Pruitt street. He had to admit, the lure of following the uptight 'ninja' to see what he got up to these days… he might just be leading them to his stupid dojo, but they also had nothing else to do and Bee would do _anything_ to get Detroit's Roadrunner to stop asking him to time his sprint across the parking lot again.

And so, with a conspiratorial nod, began the stalking of Prowl.

Ten minutes in, Bumblebee decided he missed being eight: stalking people was officially _awesome_. He felt incredibly superior snickering to Blurr as Prowl looked behind him with an odd expression, having barely missed the two boys' desperate plunge into a nearby restaurant, where they ducked into a booth to avoid detection. Their target then frowned and continued on, only to have Blurr and Bee tiptoe after, unaware of the scathing glares and head-shakes they received from poor, uninformed Detroit restaurant patrons.

Prowl's orderly trail eventually led to a small repair shop on Dean street, which was luckily loaded with tons of crannies for onlooking teens to hide.

Prowl's bike was sitting on the operating stand, and its concerned owner wasted no time approaching the attending mechanic. It was a silent conversation, but the sight of it was enough. The mechanic looked grimly at the other man, shook his head and gestured to the tires on the otherwise shiny motorcycle. Prowl sighed, then gave a hopeless shrug of his shoulders. He got out the hardware bag he was holding and handed it to the man, then went and leaned against the side of the garage. Before long, a huge white-skinned guy came out from the depths of the building with a slight limp, wiping his hand on a cloth. Prowl talked with him, then they _both_ talked to the mechanic, but the result was still the same. Bee tracked the new arrival with narrowed eyes, the gears in his head turning slowly.

"That must be the guy Sari was talking about," Bumblebee whispered to himself, strangely unable to feel jealous anymore: the dude looked so badass that he fully earned the right to rescue his girlfriend from certain death. Hell, he'd probably done it with his eyes closed on top of having only one hand. He was like some new-age Chuck Norris with a shaved head.

But if it was the same guy, and Prowl was right there… that _also_ meant that—Bee suppressed a shudder. He didn't want to think about it, he did _not_ want to think about it but here he was, thinking about it; _why was he still thinking about it_?!

As Bee watched, however, he realized they were greeting each other like two guys: a nod and a hand-gesture, wordless. Prowl didn't rip off his khakis to reveal studded leather chaps, nor mince into the other man's arms for a big sloppy gay kiss. Relying on stereotypes as intensely as he did, Bee was a little confused about this apparent exception to the homo-myth, especially when the big guy didn't slap Prowl's ass or grab his groin. The oblivious teen began to wonder what gay _meant_ if there weren't chaps involved, but he wasn't able to get far for sake of Blurr.

"What? Whatguy? WhatarewetalkingaboutImissedsomething!" Blurr complained loudly, perched behind his dumpster with a grumpy look on his face, as though he hadn't anticipated that Bee would be doing so much of the reconnaissance because that was his favorite part goshdarnit!

"Uh. Well." Was there an easy way to explain this, much less in a way that would keep Blurr's horrifically short attention? Bee swallowed loudly. "Prowl's… living with a dude."

Why was _he_ the one who always had to break it to people? As much as he liked being on the up and up (and keeping his bits of blackmail very close at hand), spreading Prowl's dirty little secret was fast losing its charm! Thankfully, Blurr's mouth only popped open for a second. Bee thought he was taking it rather well until Blurr smiled so widely that the other boy knew there had been no 'taking' involved at all, well or badly.

"Sothat'shisroommate?"

"Ur," Bee said stupidly, resisting the urge to slap his forehead.

"You'regonnabemyroommateincollegeofcourseuhhuhisn'titlikethatBumblebeehuh?"

"Wait, no b--_dude_, not like that!"

"WellIdon'tseewhyno—_heylookacamaro_!"

He had to tug Blurr back into the shadow, away from the beautiful yellow car humming softly at the stop-light, and clap a hand over his mouth. The garage was no less than twenty feet away and Blurr's voice was _piercing_; Bee groaned, knowing he should have prepared some sort of hypodermic emergency Ritalin injection. Even Blurr's breaths against his hand were so fast he was afraid the other boy was going to drop dead. Then again, the thought of taking a shot on a 'mission' could be so realistic Blurr might just pass out from excitement.

The track-star had sincerely asked the high school counselor if 'secret agent' was an available understudy program at the local trade school… and he didn't believe her when she said no. Being a secret agent training program, finding it and _getting in_ had to be some sort of test, and he would find it and pass it! Blurr had said it so with so much gusto in his quavering, hyper voice that Bee couldn't bother to inform him of reality. It was kinder that way, for the both of them.

So, gay stuff might've been a little out of his league. He was saved from giving Blurr the ugly 'well-one-gets-on-his-knees-and' details by a sudden development in the mechanic situation, which both boys stopped to witness. Prowl handed over the keys with a wistful expression and joined the albino Chuck Norris. After a brief exchange, they started walking. Off. Somewhere.

Possibly to slip away somewhere quiet and do gay things. Bumblebee squinted at Prowl's pants, trying to see the chaps that _must_ have been there.

Blurr, seeing Bumblebee _finally_ hesitate (and therefore thoroughly surrender his position as leader of the stalking expedition, _yes_), zipped on after them too fast for Bee to say anything or even grab the hem of his long blue shirt. Following two people was better than following one, according to Blurr's utterly thrilled face (which was already poking out from behind the dumpster of a nearby ally, urging his best buddy on), but Bumblebee wasn't so sure--because maybe he _didn't_ want to see what Prowl got 'up' to these days, especially if it involved a load of butt-sex!

They followed the two men for three streets, Bee growing increasingly nervous but always an alleyway too far away to tell Blurr to back off. The most he could manage were frantic hand-gestures, which the hyperactive young man interpreted as 'YEAH GO ON KEEP FOLLOWING THEM YOU'RE AWESOME BLURR LET'S SEE WHERE THEY'VE HIDDEN THE TREASURE!' or something like that.

When he finally caught up with Blurr, it was just in time to see Prowl and his… _boyfriend_ take an easy turn and go down an alleyway. He opened his mouth, exhausted, but Blurr grabbed his shirt and dragged him behind the nearest building.

"There'sabackwaythere's_always_abackway!"

Unfortunately, Blurr was right. Far too soon for Bee's comfort, they were behind a pile of trash-cans with one open space through which to peer—an open space that unfortunately framed Prowl and the white guy perfectly. The latter of the two was obviously trying to move in on his boyfriend, who was currently playing innocent or just plain disinterested.

"Whataretheydoing?"

"I don't think you wanna—" Bee shook his head, dying to get out of the alleyway. He could feel the sexual tension rising like a flood of glue. Maybe if they just… ran? If they were lucky, Prowl would be too _involved_ to notice. "It's getting freezing, man, come on. Let's go ho--"

"Letmeseeletmesee!"

Once he muscled his way across Bee's knees, sweet-natured Blurr froze at the peek-hole, watching with big brown eyes as though he simply didn't understand why the bigger man with the tattoos was pushing Bumblebee's friend against the wall, nor why Bumblebee's friend looked so very put out about it.

Possibly he was about to get beat up? Blurr and Bumblebee would charge out and help if that were the case, because that's what secret agents _did_. Blurr watched even more intently for a sign of escalating violence, mouth set in a very business-like frown.

The horrible thing about their new tangle of a spying position was that Bee could still _see_ and that meant he couldn't look away, and so squirmed for the next five minutes while the two men played a maddening version of footsie with their faces. Really, the buff guy only managed to get one kiss in, though it was horribly tonguey—but the whole groping-impending-intimacy thing _with Prowl on one side of it_ just set the teen's skin to squirming. In fact, when combined with something that _had_ to have been a passionate gasp (but in reality was a pissy noise intended to get Lockdown to back off), it was so nerve-wracking that it made Bee lose his balance, which made him unable to support Blurr's weight anymore, which made them both go crash-clang-rattling into trashcans.

Within the space of seconds, Blurr was splayed on top of him and Bumblebee _knew_ he was going to die.

Before he had even cleared his mind of the fall, Bee was looking up into Prowl's long, cold face, one exotic eye seeming to tic slightly as he watched. Slowly, very slowly, a sliver of teeth emerged.

"One word," Prowl murmured above his head, voice poisonously soft. "And I crack your network and email your pornography folder to Sari."

Bee's reaction, too panicked to be translated into words, gave him the strength to heave Blurr up and bodily haul him from the alleyway, both boys escaping onto the streets with a frenzied slapping of sneakers.

Everything was silent for a moment. Prowl sighed, leaning against the wall, then Lockdown spoke.

"How long were they tailin' you?"

"Possibly since the hardware store, definitely since Pertucci's."

Prowl's grim tone made Lockdown chuckle evilly, which in turn reminded Prowl of the other man's fiendish nature. He whipped around in order to glare at his housemate.

"But—you _knew_! I thought you were taking me into that alley to lose them. If you knew, why on earth did you keep—keep--!!" He sputtered incoherently, finally demanding, "Why on earth did you do that?"

"Ain't opposed to a little audience," Lockdown purred easily, stretching against the alley-way wall. Prowl's head went into his hands.

"He's going to think I regularly have sex in alleyways," he dead-panned, heart sinking.

"You don't want him to get the wrong impression, do ya?" the ex-dragster asked him far too cheerily, once more forcing the young man against the wall by mere proximity and rumbling like a happy musclecar. "So why don't we get on it a'fore another couple'a kids comes lookin' for a show?"

Prowl pushed at his barrel chest, nose wrinkling.

"You are _sick_."

"I'm also yer ride home, darlin'." An arm in front of the alley entrance stopped Prowl in his tracks, as did the lecherous smile on his housemate's tattooed face. "So I'd suggest you givin' me a kiss so I don't decide to leave your ass to catch the bus."

"You wouldn't," Prowl challenged him, eyes narrowed to slits.

"Better safe'n sorry, ninjacop."

A few seconds of waiting assured him that Lockdown would not fold. He wanted a kiss. Here. In public. Eyes flickering to the outside world, nervously tracking the pedestrians on the other side of the street, Prowl bit his tongue, swallowed his fear, quickly pressed his lips to the other man's cheek then pushed past him and started in on a deadly-quick, and most certainly mortified, stride down the sidewalk.

"Cheapskate," Lockdown muttered, but let it slide, thinking it worthwhile when Prowl allowed him to hook a finger through his belt-loop for a block before they reached the car.


	10. Change is for the Young

_Characters: Ratchet, Arcee, brief mentioning of Optimus and BA_

_Pairings: None besides aforementioned OPxBA_

_Warnings: none_

* * *

Change is for the Young

* * *

If he were worth his weight, he'd say something.

But the thing about being old is that he long ago got the hang of how these things worked. He knew how it would go. He knew the kid—such a good kid, trying so _hard_ to do right_--_would protest that he was wrong about it. Outsiders were always wrong about such things.

But it wouldn't be an argument, just a dead-end conversation, because she'd even sapped him of the will to fight.

_She's in pain_, the kid would say, head bowed low. _She needs my help_.

_Help is one thing_, he would bark, _and letting someone cut you to pieces is another. She doesn't want to get better. She isn't going to use you for anything but her own ends; her own _end_, all arranged around making your life miserable. She doesn't want your apologies, she wants your blood—and she's aiming to suck you dry. You gotta wise up and run before she tricks you into thinking you deserve it._

And he would look up, blue eyes cloudy and far-away.

_There's nothin' left in her that you can fix. I've seen it, what she's done to you. She ain't human anymore, kid. She's a predator. Run. _

That's what he'd say, if he didn't have to pretend it wasn't happening. Ratchet had a lot of time to think about what he would and wouldn't do while driving around a barren, snow-white Detroit, trying to convince himself he wasn't going to the stadium. He wasn't going to the stadium, he wasn't going to any awards ceremony, he was just _out_.

Couldn't an old man just go for a drive in the snow when he needed to get out of the house?

He just happened to be driving along main-street, and the only reason he took a right was because of the scooper-droids still cleaning out the last bits of the five inches the city had gotten last night… It was easier that way, no traffic hang-ups, but then he was on Miriam, and he grimaced for a split second before making a left at 30th. He pretended it was just a gut reaction. It was the way he went to work, after all.

There was no real way to go but forward, and then there was the stadium.

Goddamn him.

The creak of new powdered snow compacting under his tires sounded as tired as Ratchet felt. He got out rubbing his hands in the frigid air; he didn't take his gloves, because this would be quick. He was just going to look in. He wouldn't even sit in the audience, just find an empty doorway and watch until she got her award. Then he'd be gone.

He knew his way around the stadium. Been there often enough. He strode through the echoing concrete passages with a slight limp in his step—cold weather always made his knees act up. He kept his eye on the entrances to the stadium, stomach tightening in something like fear or guilt whenever he saw orderly white fold-up chairs and a stage.

He stopped, staring at the doll-like people occupying all of those chairs, chatting soundlessly to one another, but still with that genial 'I'm Bobby's Mom' affectation. Parents. All parents, constant and loving, waiting with baited breath to see their child get recognized. Ratchet's weathered face screwed up and he stuck his hands in his ice-cold pockets. Hiding.

If he didn't want her to see him, what was the point of it? If he wasn't going to support her, what in the hell was he doing there—what the hell was _keeping_ him from being supportive of her? More importantly… what did he feel like he was committing to, by sitting in that audience with the rest of the parents?

He didn't belong there, that much was fact.

It was a horrible idea. He was walking on a mine-field, and one connected to a little girl's heart. He would just loop around. If he kept to the back of the hallway, no one would see him and he could just go back to his car, go back to his little concrete room and do whatever it was that old folks did when they can't seem to stop being alone.

Shaking his head, the old medic started walking again. His footstep made a metronome of the concrete, each slap of his sole measuring how far away from Arcee he was. How far away he was going, how far away he'd stay. No use giving her false hope. He couldn't be what she needed. He couldn't even sit in a chair for her.

Goddamn him. Goddamn him to hell.

Ratchet slowed down slightly, frown deepening when he realized there was a commotion brewing a little farther up the hallway. His way out was blocked, and if he'd reckoned correctly, he was in the section of the loop closest to the stage. Steeling himself for any strange looks, he trudged up towards the warped shadows that belonged to the furor—then he heard something about someone having an asthma attack.

He immediately felt like rolling his eyes at all the panic. They didn't have anyone with an ounce of medical sense in them, he'd put money on it. They were all _teachers_, trained to react with squeals and histrionics to as little as a stuffy nose. Still, that didn't mean the kid in question deserved it--and if he couldn't feel good about one single thing he'd done that day…

Feeling more annoyed than heroic, Ratchet pushed his way through the cluster of skinny, fretting teachers in themed sweaters and right there, crouched on a chair, was Arcee.

Her curls were matted to her forehead, even in the freezing air; her little pink hands were pressed against her mouth. His expectations and his reality crashed with a strange sound, feet heavy and motionless on the concrete of the stadium while she wheezed in, wheezed out. Again, this time with a ghost of a whimper.

Ratchet was only brought back to Earth by a hand on his arm and an almost-pretty blond stepping into his line of vision, lumpy sweater sporting several knit Christmas trees.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a legally certified paramedic, that's all you need to know," he growled suddenly, knocked back into gear as he dropped down to Arcee's level, old knees creaking. "Get outta my way, unless _you_ know CPR."

Teachers withdrew immediately, probably spooked by his _advanced medical terminology_. Throw a few acronyms their way and they'd give him a ten-foot workspace. He didn't need it, even as he felt suddenly uneasy with that wide circle around him, his knees aching sharply against the concrete as teachers muttered all around him.

Arcee.

At another taxed breath from the little girl in front of him, his training took over. Carefully but firmly, he put his hand to her birdbone chest. She didn't flinch. He didn't have a stethoscope, but he couldn't feel the wheezing creak that usually came with asthma—trust the teachers to not even know if she had a preexisting condition or not.

It seemed she was just hyperventilating. She was shy. That had changed. She used to be the boldest little creature, cart-wheeling until her dress flew up to her neck, and now she was bent over in the dark of a stadium hallway just because she had to go accept an award.

Or maybe it was less about the award and more about the sweep her eyes would perform on the assembled crowd and she didn't want to give her sense of worth to who was or wasn't there.

Absently, old heart clenching, he shushed her, but she just shook her head, breathing even more quickly. She hadn't seen him, or heard him. To her, he was just another faceless adult. It rang true to Ratchet in a way that shook him to his bones—because he had left her too, hadn't he?

She was a child. She needed to be taken care of. Loved, personally; treasured for who she was. What had gone wrong, that she wasn't given even one person that she could place her every trust in?

If it wasn't her fault, who had failed her?

"Arcee. Hey," Ratchet murmured. His hand was on her knee, now. Her name was the hardest, but his throat tightened after that. "Need you to take deep breaths for me."

She looked up. She looked straight up into his eyes, and didn't breathe at all for a second. Neither did he.

"You came," she whispered.

"'Course I did," he said with a gruff certainty that he hadn't felt in the slightest until that moment, wiping her damp forehead clean with a swipe of his callused thumb and tugging her sweater straight. "You asked me to and I did. That so hard to believe?"

A teacher leaned down close from behind the chair, casting the older man a confused glance as, figuring everything to be fixed by the fact Arcee wasn't wheezing anymore, she took her by the shoulders. Ratchet didn't bother with the woman, too strangely entranced by the texture of the little girl's sweater underneath his callused fingertips.

"Are you feeling better? Come now, sweetheart, you're almost up."

The little girl got up unsteadily, even with Ratchet's ham-hock hand to steady her. Running on autopilot with the teacher's hands steering her, Arcee only got five steps toward the stage when she looked back, tugging free of the woman's hand--looking like she wanted nothing more than to run to him and forget the ceremony but was tied back by something more than just obligation. Fear and uncertainty, after being abandoned for nine years when she should have had a father.

"Ratchet—"

"I'll stay right here," he cut her off, rising heavily to his feet. His knees screamed at him, pain daggering up his thick thighs. He made himself smile for her as the next words came out, unbidden and stunned. "M'not… goin' anywhere."

She smiled as if she couldn't believe it, as if she heard what he truly meant. And he meant it. Looking at her standing there, reaching for him with just her eyes, he had suddenly decided it with all of his being: he wasn't going anywhere, not here and not anywhere after. Not without her.

And she believed him. She believed him enough to turn her back and leave him there, trusting that he would come back for her for the final time. She was halfway down the hallway, mary-janes clip-clopping steadier and steadier, when he called after her.

"What's your favorite kind of food?"

"Indian," she answered, little voice echoing off the concrete. He shrugged and nodded, then almost shuffled his feet so he would have something to look at instead of her.

"It's about dinner time."

It was all he could manage, but she seemed to understand anyways. She stared at him in confusion--confusion that shaped itself into something full of wonder. Slowly, shyly, she smiled again.

"Okay."

He watched her disappear onto the stage to a muffled ocean rush of parents clapping and knew it was true: no one could leave a girl like that twice, and thank God he was no exception.


	11. Pets

A/N: This is just a moment. It's slightly funny and slightly sad but optional. Torque and Prowl rarely get to be alone, so here's to a growing friendship.

This actually happens before and after Hero, I think. And PEE-ESS, Torque is a little oblivious. She still doesn't know Prowl and Lockdown are actually LIVING together, and just thinks (HOPES) that Prowl spends an ungodly amount of time at LD's house because of a cruddy home situation but always goes home at night—and is usually too distracted by her own issues when she visits them to really think much on it. Wayyyy to be observant, gal.

_Characters: Prowl, Lockdown, Torque, a certain black G1 kitty and very brief (SURPRISE)_

_Pairings: LockdownxProwl implied_

_Warnings: None_

* * *

Pets

* * *

Lockdown and Prowl were on the couch, indulging in their respective Saturday-afternoon hobbies, when there was a knock at the door. Wondering why Torque was dropping by twice in a week (only one person ever visited the ramshackle house, much less with that perky knock), Prowl got up and opened the door, only to have a shiny black cat come flying towards him at eye-level. He gasped and jerked back, but the cat stopped right at his nose, as per the reach of Torque's arms. She poked her head out from behind the miserable-looking thing with the hugest grin he'd ever seen.

"Look what I have!"

She literally twirled into the house, walking on cloud nine and hoisting the cat up to give it a big, noisy smooch on the nose.

"Kitty-witty!"

"You have… a cat?" Prowl tried weakly, watching her tip-toe to and fro in their living room.

"Oh _shit_."

That last comment came, predictably, from Lockdown. He took one look at the cat and found that one was enough, already dreading the cat-hair he would find on his couch later. He groaned and glared at his current magazine when Torque came over and curled up on the couch, flicking at her 'kitty-witty's ears. After a moment, Prowl sat next to her—the couch seemed made for the three of them to fit comfortably—and reached over to inspect the animal's tangling blue tag, then drew back, aghast.

"_Ravage_?"

"Because he's a _fierce_ kitty-witty, idn't he? Idn't he though? Yes he _is_," she warbled, rubbing the cat's back so viciously that 'Ravage' was nearly knocked off her lap. She looked up with a grin. "But no, really, I picked him up from the shelter and that's his _name_. Ravage! Might as well name him 'the Rape-inator' or 'Destructo'. He actually answers to it, though, so I can't change it even if I wanted t—hey, hey!"

'Ravage' squirmed free from Torque's evil female clutches and hit the coffee table running, kicking out a slippery stack of magazines all over the floor. He then bounded across Lockdown's lap, nearly making the older man spill his so-called 'tea' while trying to simultaneously stop the animal and save the rest of his magazine stack, which then collapsed.

"Fuckin' hate cats," Lockdown snarled when the dust cleared, shooting his old friend a look that bordered on murderous. She just chuckled lamely and moved to get the cat while Lockdown went down onto one knee to collect the magazines. At least this particular episode would grant Prowl one thing: he was thinking about (maybe—_maybe_, in his _dreams_) proposing a feline addition to the house, but not anymore. Not with the way Lockdown was eyeing the cat as though he'd like little more than to skin it and… Prowl couldn't even guess what else.

After retrieving Ravage from the top shelf of the kitchen, Torque cuddled him and chatted happily about nothing, in a rare mood. After the fourth bone-crushing squeeze to her miserable captive, however, Lockdown (thoroughly uninvolved in the conversation due to the little imposter on her lap) finally snorted.

"You and all'a your mothering. Go adopt a kid or something--'else you're gonna kill that cat."

The older woman's face froze and changed: the look of sadness was both unexpected and deep, and took Prowl by surprise. Lockdown was either unknowing of his personal jab or knew and hid it while he went to the kitchen to refill his glass. By the time he returned, Torque was smiling again, even if she didn't have as much to say and left soon after.

* * *

A week and a Sumdac Industries catastrophe later, she was back—this time standing at the front door with reddish eyes and distinctly empty arms.

"What's… the matter?"

"Ravage ran away," she whispered. Though her hair was combed, her tightly-bundled jacket and lack of make-up made her look strangely small and exposed.

"Lockdown is not home," Prowl said, caught alone at the door and at a loss.

The fact his housemate was in the hospital was secondary and seemed a bit too catastrophic for a doorway conversation. It was strange that she hadn't _heard_, but then, it seemed the only thing that should really matter to her: she came for her friend and he wasn't there. But the look on her face said that Prowl's plainly informative statement hit her an entirely different way. She nodded and wiped at her eyes before turning and walking from the porch.

Prowl, realizing he didn't mean _that_, reached for her, managing to touch her shoulder before jerking away. It was enough to make her turn around.

"No—wait. I'm… I apologize. Please come in." He tried to smile bracingly but it came out like more of a grimace (he still wasn't good with _people_ and this only showed it in vivid Technicolor) and continued, "I only meant he isn't back yet. I'm hardly one to deny you entrance: you can wait for him. For as long as you want."

He didn't know quite what he meant, as Lockdown was scheduled for release in _four_ days and he didn't want to be the one to tell her about her old friend's injury (or daring rescue) with as private as Lockdown was, but his own brain was addled by the knock he took on the head. Whatever the case, it worked for the time being: she nodded, short and hurt, and came inside.

Prowl followed, wondering where the line between host and friend lay and whether he should get her a drink or a _drink_-drink. He got halfway to the kitchen; Torque was hardly seated on the couch when she began to cry, muffling it half-heartedly in her scarf.

It seemed less about the cat and more about the fact she needed to cry about something, but he was still the only one there to comfort her, and that was a problem. He felt for her, yes, but he simply didn't know the proper steps to show it, and if he hated anything, it was _not knowing what to do_. The situation froze him; he stood in the middle of the living room like an idiot, watching her sob, for at least a minute before he carefully sat down next to her.

"I kn-know it's st…"

She had to stop before continuing, squeezing her scarf in her hands. Warm tears spotted the lavender fabric, matching ones webbing her eyelashes.

"I _know_ it's stupid and I only h-had him for a few days but I m-miss him so much. The h-house is so empty and I don't have anyone to come home to after w-work and Ravage was there, even if it was just to, I don't know, meow for food. He was s-still there. I just… I just…"

She sniffled for a minute then drew a tight breath, clenching her fists.

"Ever since that _stupid_ tattoo I've been trying to—I don't know, change something _nice_, do something with myself, but I get a haircut and nobody notices and I get the tattoo buzzed off and a guy fucking _complains_ about it and I get a _cat_ and it runs _away_ and I just—I ju—oh god, I'm just so sick of trying!"

Prowl carefully reached out and held her hand as she cried, venting all of the loneliness and lack of self-worth it seemed she had ever felt. It was a vulnerable, overwhelming experience, but at the same time strangely powerful: she had something bad in her and she was purging it. Experiencing her own weakness, admitting it, and starting anew.

Prowl had never been able to do that before. Have a cathartic experience. Regardless of his current contentment, he still had the injuries of a lifetime sitting in his blood-stream, filed away like they would disappear with the proper amount of self-control. He felt strangely stagnant sitting next to her; poisonous due to the walls still in his life, all pressing in and keeping him from himself. From touch, from honesty.

Still, he realized he was stroking the back of her hand with this thumb right about the time she squeezed it and looked at him with a miserable gratitude. She let out a shaky breath as her sadness finally spent itself. The clouds cleared.

"Cats are selfish, standoffish little bitches," she muttered viciously when she could breathe again, smearing at her puffy eyes. "I hate them."

He found cats' self-sufficiency and grace to be attractive, but Prowl's brow drifted up for another reason, remembering her official 'introduction' at the exotic dancing club.

"I thought you said you liked kittens."

"I love kittens, I just hate cats," she grumbled. "They think they're too good for you and want you to know it. It's best when they're too young to know better, so you can trick them into needing you for a little while. That's the only way to pretend they love you."

Unsure quite why, perhaps due to the combination of her dark words and her stuffy voice, Prowl laughed a little, which made Torque chuckle. They sat for a little while longer, then the older woman suddenly reached over and hugged Prowl as tightly as she could, making him stiffen in surprise. Still, with the same soft instinct that made him stroke her hand, his other arm found its way around her back and she smiled into his silky hair.

He was learning.

The two just-about-friends parted and Torque sat back, giving a watery smile. She cleared the sticky hair (which Prowl now realized _was_ cut into a regular bob, and not her regular a-symmetrical fare) from her face and collapsed into the couch as if boneless.

"So. The man of the house. Where is he? Late shift? He forgot to tell you he had a late shift and not to come over, I bet."

Prowl winced.

"It's a touch more complicated than that…" he began reluctantly, then took a deep breath. "If we are speaking purely in the terms of location… Are you familiar with the hospital on fifty-sixth street?"

"_What_!?"

* * *

Far across town, a sinewy black cat, not a little starving, stared at a café door until a man exited. Twining around his legs, the cat purred deeply. Stopping, the man rearranged his red visor, expression stymied, then bent down and handed the cat the rest of his muffin. The cat fell upon it with gusto, murring excitedly and even letting the man check his collar for an obnoxious little blue heart-shaped tag, which he frowned at.

"Designation: Ravage?"

Unaffected by the grating electronic monotone, Ravage purred.


	12. Family

_Characters: Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Optimus, Ratchet and (SECRET)_

_Pairings: none_

_Warnings: Christmas fluff, goes right along with/right after 'Starry Night'. Have a toothbrush nearby, this fluff is shameful._

* * *

Family

* * *

Everything was in place: the tree, scrawny though it was, was jingling with silver bits and cheap ornaments, the star atop it suffering from a half-dead battery but still trying its best to survive until the last of the wrapping paper was discarded. It was Christmas.

"It's kinda… weird without Prowl here, huh?" Bulkhead said suddenly, hands still roving over the present he had been contemplating for the last ten minutes.

"So you say!" Bumblebee retorted, brutally shaking a box before even checking if it had his name on it. "If there's anything worse than getting no presents at all, it's getting a present and opening it, but it's a freakin' self-help ninja book or a blank application for a library card. He got the _worst_ gifts!

"Maybe Prowl was right in wanting you to… expand a little," Optimus offered, smiling wryly at his little cousin. "And maybe he's feeling a little relief too, knowing no one's going to try and give him a few _leaves_ paper-clipped together as a present."

"I think he actually dug that. Started going on about different kinds of trees. I tuned out when he started talking about temperate forests." Bee chewed at his lip, then shrugged. "Eh. Whatever."

There was a flurry of ripping noises, then—

"Oh dude, Prince of Persia 6!"

Optimus watched Bulkhead and Bee open their presents, then opened his own—some of them he'd bought for himself, but wrapped them just for presentation's sake. Although he _did_ actually like Bulkhead's gift of an easel, even if it wasn't going to be implemented as he intended… his desk at work desperately needed the support. After Christmas morning wound down into Bee and Bulkhead playing with their new possessions (or, in Bee's case, trying to trade conscientious Bulkhead some useless items for some of his stockpiled batteries, so the younger boy could start listening to his new MP8 player _right now_) Optimus looked around and frowned, wondering where Ratchet was.

The older man usually wandered out in the middle of it all, grumping about this or that and opening his three presents with all due irritation, then slapping or cuffing the kids as their presents deserved. He had been gone lately: no one knew why, but it became apparent when the door opened with a burst of cold air and snow.

Everyone looked back. Standing there amidst the lacey snowflakes that refused to melt on the cold concrete floor, Ratchet had a young girl by the shoulders.

"Um. Hi."

She raised a hand shyly. Optimus' eyes went wide when he realized, bundled though she was in a pink jacket and a white hat, that she was the very same little girl he'd let in a half-month earlier. Ratchet closed the factory door with a grunt, locking it against the cold, then gently—_so_ gently—led the young woman over to the commons area, helping her untangle her scarf from her rosy face.

"Boys, this is Arcee."

Various greetings, scattered and slightly awkward, came from the three men on the couches. She blushed nonetheless, twittering her fingers again by way of greeting.

"She's, uh—" Ratchet plucked at the collar to his shirt, blustering slightly. "She's gonna be a part'a this… jacked-up little family from now on, so you kids better… do right by her. Hear?"

"Yeah, Ratchet. We gotcha," the large boy said with a very serious nod, as though he had been entrusted with a position as a foreign dignitary. To make good on it, he leaned toward the tiny girl and waved, somehow equally shy. "Hi, I'm Bulkhead."

"I'm Bumblebee!" the skinny one said proudly, then seemed to realize that was all he had to offer. He frowned for a split second, then lit up again like a blazing yellow bulb. "You like videogames?"

"I've never really..." she began hesitantly, blushing into the collar of her coat again.

"Bumblebee, she's a girl!" Bulkhead muttered, horribly offended.

"Sari's a girl and she loves videogames," Bumblebee argued in an exaggerated hiss, making Arcee giggle into her hands. At the noise, the two boys turned on her and seemed to mount a competition as to who could appeal to her mysterious fifteen-year-old sensibilities first.

"Do you like art?"

"What about kickball?"

"Horses?"

"Cartoons?"

"She's fifteen-year-old young lady, goddamnit, you treat her like one!" Ratchet huffed, earning him a dubious look from Optimus. "Certain she's smarter than you, you little punk--didn't hear about you winnin' any awards!"

"It's… okay Ratchet," she said gently. Perhaps it was her voice, or the brush of her little pink fingertips across his big rough ones, but the old man quieted immediately. She turned toward Bulkhead, who took his victory with nothing more than a startled look and a blush of his own. "Yes. I like art."

"You wanna, um. You wanna come—well, I mean, I've got some of it. Art. Some art that I've done." Bulkhead looked at her like he was holding his breath, then mumbled in a big shy rush, "It's okay if you don't wanna see it."

"I'd love to," she exclaimed, turning around and looking to Ratchet. "Can I, Ratchet?"

"Go ahead," he grunted, then finished gloomily, "Bulkhead's probably the safest one'a the lot."

Taking her carefully like the responsibility she was, Bulkhead walked the little girl down the hallway, explaining everything—the strange doors for the too-wide entries to each of the rooms and the planks that filled the rest of the space, how it used to be a factory, where he wanted to hang a big painting that he'd done--but he went strangely quiet and nervous when they reached his room at the end of the hall. The bed was enormous. She sat down on it and it hardly squeaked, and waited for him to show her his art, tiny hands clasped politely atop her knees. He jolted into motion, digging through drawers and tossing aside piece after piece, swallowing anxiously. She stepped behind him a picked up a board he'd discarded. He gulped, but her round face lit up.

"This is… so pretty."

It was a picture of the ocean near the arctic, all greens and blues and purples, that he had felt intensely at the time, but then when Tracks—a guy he knew, art critic that dropped by the station every so often—ripped it apart, he'd been rather shy of it. But she loved it: in every square inch of her face, she loved it, and that brought it back to life for him.

"Uh. Uh. Th—well, thanks," he said with rising enthusiasm, fumbling slightly as his smile grew. "It's kinda… it is kinda cool, isn't it?"

"I love the colors." She handed it to him and looked over it again, asking, "How did you get them so bright?"

"Well, uh, that's gauche. It's… spelled real funny, but it's really, really bright and—uh, you see how it's sticking out from the page? That's gauche too and the rest of its water color, so really it's not, um, that bright, but the contrast tricks your eye into—y'know. Believing it is."

"Wow."

"It's not all that hard to do," he mumbled humbly, embarrassed by her awe of it. He gave it back to her and she took it like it was a masterpiece, setting it carefully on her lap. He watched her look at it for a while, heart soaring, then cleared his throat.

"So you're—you're gonna be Ratchet's daughter, huh?"

"As soon as the papers are signed, I can come and live here with you," she said, eyes still locked on the painting. She laughed a little, shaking her head and sending a few leftover snowflakes falling from her jacket. "It sounds crazy, having my own room. I know—I just know I'm going to love it here."

Bulkhead knew she was going to love it there, too: they would all work to make her happy. He was all puffed up at the idea of the factory being filled again, with a new person coming to fill Prowl's place, then suddenly got sad.

"We don't have any presents for you," he realized, round face falling immediately. It was Christmas and she wasn't getting any presents. He scuffed his feet, feeling all of his housemate's guilt with the little girl at his side. "I'm, y'know. Sorry about that."

"It's okay," she said softly, then looked up at him, blue eyes shining. "No matter what happens, this is the best Christmas I've ever had."

* * *

"_They were just asking what she liked," Optimus said mildly. Ratchet frowned._

"_I know. But… she's smart. She's such a sharp kid. She's goin' places."_

"_And you'll help her get there. I know you will," Optimus promised, all confident kindness, and put a hand on his old mentor's arm. "This will be a good home for her, Ratchet. The best, in fact. You will never be alone in this."_

Driving through the endless white, which shone grey-blue against the night sky, Ratchet noticed that Arcee's grip around the posterboard she'd been clutching the entire day had slipped a little: a messy blue-green-purple picture was painted on the other side.

"Where'd you get that?" he grunted, motioning at the painting.

"Bulkhead gave it to me," she said, hugging it closer, then tilting it forward to look at it again.

"S'nice."

Sort of, Ratchet thought almost-charitably. But Arcee seemed besotted with it, and that was what mattered. She beamed at the messy thing for another minute before looking over at him, all blue eyes and smile.

"Can I hang it in your room?"

Ratchet's brow drifted up.

"Now why would you wanna do that? S'yours."

"So I can have one more thing to look forward to when I come to see you."

For a moment, he did nothing but drive, hearing the snow crunch under his old EMC vehicle's tires. But when his vision began to blur, he had to slow down; lonely old Ratchet coughed a little as he teared up and Arcee looked up at him with instant concern, blue eyes wide.

"Ratchet? What's wrong?"

Ratchet shook his head, braking a little on the soft snow to wipe his eyes and feeling something he'd thought was gone finally fall into place.

"Just wonderin' how I lived without you my whole life, kid."


	13. Nightmare

A/N: OH CANON, I love screwing with you.

_Characters: Sari, Bee, Papa Sumdac_

_Pairings: SarixBee_

_Warnings: intense gore/canon molestation at the first, then a dry-heaving Bee. Then uberfluff._

* * *

Nightmare

* * *

"Oh god. Oh _god_, Dad!"

Her voice echoed in the white room. A thousand shiny round lenses were trained on the hunch of her back, peach and yellow dress darkened with hard sweat. Why, he wondered, why wasn't she screaming for her dad to help her—until he realized _he was the one who did it_.

"Dad, how… how could you?"

He could hear the splitting pain in her voice and he knew it was too late.

They'd both known it was happening, but they didn't think it could be this _bad_. Sari's portly little father was watching from behind seven-mile-thick glass and taking notes as his wiry daughter writhed on the floor, fingers scrabbling at the gleaming white tile. He looked up and tapped his pen, unflinching as she spasmed and something tore inside of her, pink fluid bursting from her mouth and spattering heavily on the floor, pulsing, spreading. Glowing on her teeth, glowing on the tile.

As the whole world watched, her hand rose up and her soft brown flesh split apart to reveal knobby metal at each joint, all small dead things whirling and clicking around the blue bulb pulsing in the middle of her palm. The pink stuff dribbled down her thin wrist and she looked at her hand-machine in blank horror and flexed.

There was a grisly whirring noise and a snap from the last of her bones. She looked up and over, to where he was standing, and her neck gave an audible and too-fast crack, head angled unnaturally with her hair hanging over her bright fever-blue eyes.

"Bumblebee?"

Wire-bundles burst from her chest with two wet puncture noises and slithered around her neck, digging in behind her ears like nesting worms.

"Bee, I… I don't think I'm human anymore."

Her mouth barely moved, as though her voice, fully formed and tinted with pixels and static, filtered out from somewhere deeper, like a dense black box speaker in her throat. The box pushed, wanting to get out. Only he could see the fake skin bulging; she couldn't feel it. She only reached for him with those bleeding puppet fingers, every shred of emotion draining from her tinny voice to mirror the pink running out of her mouth, out of her _fuel lines_, every movement choppy.

"It hurts. It hurts so much."

He, overcoming his fear, rushed her and held her. She was cold and he could feel things churning inside of her. Circular twirling things with teeth, pistons, cold liquid sloshing through tubes. Then there was a flash of bright blue and pain, such pain, cleaving through his heart and ribs and pulsing organs. He looked down.

Some sort of vibrating blade was hilt-deep in his side, Sari's beautiful blue-eyed face perfectly blank and inches from his own.

"You still love me, right?" she whispered, and he died.

* * *

Bee sat up in his rumpled sheets so sharply he nearly fell off the bed, one hand cupping his bleeding—dry, dry, it was dry. Why was it dry? There should be… pink stuff?

The teen panted heavily in the dark room, all of his winking, glowing electronics blurring into starbursts in his narrowed eyes, then suddenly stumbled up from the bed and bolted down the hallway. He crashed to his knees when he got to the restrooms and got sick just once, then dry-heaved into the toilet until his raw red stomach felt like it was going to push itself inside-out. After the spasms ended, he kneeled with his sweaty forehead against the bowl, wiping at his mouth and his damp eyes and murmuring nonsense to keep himself upright.

"Oh god. Oh… g-god, oh man."

He felt sick. Utterly sick, like his fleshy stomach had been ripped out, all the acid left to slosh into his jumbled insides. Fogged with sleep and fear, he had a swift and crushing craving for his parents, so far away. He wanted to crawl into bed-sheets that weren't his, cool and untouched by his nervous sweat. Have someone to take care of him.

But there was no one to help him and he needed help, some sort of human contact. An inexplicable terror gripped him, something ingrained in his muscles and the back of his scratchy throat. Inexplicable, yes, and that was half the terror. He'd seen _horror movies_ more impressive than that dream, but—

Sari.

The image of his girlfriend rose inside his head, and it wasn't his favorite one--that of her beside the pool, fishing furiously for the watermelon slice she'd dropped in the water, small cleavage of her soft brown chest glistening. It was… bloodier. His abused stomach tightened. He had to make sure—it was neurotic, it was stupid—but he had to make sure she was okay. He had to refresh his memory of her, tear her from his gory acid-trip dream back into the real world.

They never called each other at odd times of night—multiple reasons—but once Bee felt steady enough to leave the bathroom, he got his phone and mashed at the buttons until it started ringing, the small tinny sound seeming to shrink against the silence and cold concrete of his dark room like a singular lifeline to the real world.

After five rings, she picked up. Sheets rustling, she drew breath—sleepy breath, it was 3 am, of course the phone had badgered her out of a deep sleep—but he spoke first.

"Sari?"

His tone was so faint and cracked, her mouth snapped shut on the other side of town.

"Bee? What's… um, what's wrong?"

"I just—oh man. Oh god. Oh _god_."

It was a relief hearing her voice, but he still ran his hands over his skinny wet arms. Bee mumbled something, just to say it. He hardly knew what he wanted to hear—what would stop the ants crawling over his skin? But she knew him, or she just knew people, and she got it. It took no more than hearing the nauseated weave of her boyfriend's scratchy voice, the pauses and tough breaths.

"I'll be right over."

Bumblebee's eyes widened, brain cramping.

"What? No, you—what?"

She said something, like she was seventeen and it was about time she'd snuck out—something light and witty and very closed to satisfy him, to keep him from arguing even though he was in no state to—and hung up. He shivered in bed for only twenty minutes before she was at his window, which he crawled over to and opened up, letting her climb in.

She didn't waste any time hugging him and he didn't waste time crushing her against his chest, pouring something into her, wiping the poisoned sweat off of his skin. She was compact and warm and clean, fully female and fully human. Bee finally exhaled.

She sat him down and already his heart was pumping the acid slower, but he still felt so sick. If he didn't watch it, he was going to barf all over her—something dark and heavy was right at the cusp of his throat, jabbing at his gag reflex every other minute. He touched her, just grabbing her hand. It felt cool and real and he felt her white bones underneath all that soft cocoa-brown skin; meanwhile, he was unable to stop talking, tugging her further and further onto the bed with him.

"You were—oh god, you were, like, bleeding all over the floor, except the stuff was _pink_, but I knew it was blood. And I went over to help you, and you--you stabbed me, right through the chest—I _felt_ it!"

"Are you sure you didn't feel… this?"

Sari pulled a cheap DVD case out of his massacred covers, the corner of which had been bent. He left trash like that in his bed all the time. Cautiously, Bee poked his side. Sore. Upon further inspection, some of the skin was scrubbed off, leaving little white tracks with bloodspots underneath. Unless he was mistaken, he'd have a bruise there—very small and very… corner-of-a-DVD-shaped. Sari's appraising face was waiting for him when he came to this conclusion, one eyebrow arched.

"Have you been watching too many Sci-fi channel specials?" she asked, wiggling the DVD case. Far from condescending, her tone was teasing and slightly accusatory.

"Not without you," he mumbled with a very wan smile. His expression, the gummy stretch of his mouth combined with his glazed eyes and pale skin, made the Sumdac heir frown sharply. She put a hand up to his forehead, pushing aside his sweaty blond hair, then drew back and felt his neck.

"Oh jeez," she murmured, pressing at other places that made no sense to him, but he tracked her hands and their kind touch like little pieces of sanity. "You're burning up."

"Huh?"

"You've got a fever, Bumbler, and probably a few less brain-cells than you did yesterday. I mean, like, you're scalding. Really scalding."

"Oh," Bumblebee said brilliantly, slowly fitting the pieces together.

"I think you're a little delirious, too," Sari added kindly—probably as a way of excusing his nightmare-induced fit of calling her for help. Maybe a promise she'd act like it hadn't happened and would never mention it to any of the guys. "It would probably explain your dream."

"Okay."

He sounded stupid, even to himself, but he was so drained: it was like once the sickness was named, it took him over in earnest, making him ache from head to toe.

"You sounded so scared," she said softly, scraping his wet hair away from his face again. Her fingernails felt so good on his prickling scalp.

"Phhh. Scared?" he slurred, the ego equivalent of someone tapping his knee. "Did not."

She only looked at him, tolerating and sweet, and petted his head until he didn't feel so nauseated anymore.

It seemed like a false alarm, and a big one at that. By all accounts, she should get up and go back to her pretty four-poster bed, now that his fit was over. It was late. He had school tomorrow. But she didn't get up to leave, and he didn't want to face his empty factory room. After a few minutes of silence, he looked down and mumbled:

"Can you, uh… stay? With me?"

The second it was out of his mouth, he felt the impossibility of it.

Her father, regardless if he was very busy, kept incredibly close tabs on his only child out of love and always knew where she was—and his own room was small and quiet and she always left it by ten, if not because of OP's curfew then her own will. It looked like an entirely different landscape in the utter dark, something infinitely connected to fantasies… but that wasn't what he wanted right now, even if he knew how it sounded. Heck, he would even guess this was some cockeyed scheme of his to get her in a compromising position, if it didn't involve vomit and a fever. That was, y'know, a little bit of a turn-off.

But Sari didn't shake her head and apologize, beg off and return to her car. She thought about it, head cocked as she looked at him searchingly, then nodded.

"Coming from any other guy, I'd say it sounds really suspicious—but for you, I will."

"Aw, does that mean we can't make out?" Bee croaked, even as he tasted spew on his dry tongue, comprehending the breadth of her trust in him with one surge of strangely tender relief. She would stay. "'Cos I'm feelin' a little, y'know, hot…"

She snorted. He knew he was pushing the boundaries, but that's what made it all right. He was a cheeky bastard, and he was her cheeky bastard.

"I'm ninety-nine percent certain that's an immunosuppressive response." She reached over and patted his head again. "Lets just say, anything that would let me catch whatever you have? Restricted. _Very_ restricted, and I even kick sick people if they break the rules."

First, she went and got him a wet rag for his forehead, then dabbed it over the nape of his neck. He let her fix him in little ways, then watched, almost uncomfortable, as she kicked off her shoes and got underneath the covers. A little bit of wordless, strangely intimate rustling and he got his arm around her tiny middle, fingers knotting in the sheets.

She felt so good. Not in that way—it was like all of the hormones had been flushed out of his body with that acid wash of a dream—but her back against his chest and her hair under his chin, smelling like she did… She was soft. Womanly but girlish, radiating a smooth steady something that he would realize, when he was comforting his first child after a nightmare, was pure love. Just having her near him, it was as though his body shut down. Finally, Bumblebee's aching chest deflated and the sweat cooled on his skin.

She slept next to him the whole night, and when she woke up at five to the beep of her watch-alarm, Sari watched him sleep for ten long minutes before brushing his hair from his boyish face and leaving through the window, heart swollen with the memory of his cheek against her neck.


	14. Megatron's No Good Very Bad Day

A/N: Otherwise known as "Where are all the Cons?"

I kind of love Megatron. Regardless of whether he runs an evil company, he's still kind of adorable and urbane and hopelessly intelligent. I want to bring him a cappuccino and sit in his lap until he feels better.

You didn't read that last part.

_Characters: Megatron, brief Bumblebee cameo, Lugnut, Strika, ALL THE SEEKERS OH MY GOD at least in mention (but I warn you, I've combined Greedy Dirge with Liar Ramjet, because seven siblings is just one too many…), Shockwave, Soundwave, Starscream, SWINDLLLLLE, Scrapper, brief Cyclonus._

_Pairings: Squint-and-THERE-WILL-BE Megatron/Starscream, implied Lugnut/Strika._

_Warnings: Megatron's depression might be contagious, so run away now D: But I BEG you to imagine his deep rumbly voice with the last bits of dialogue, it's just PRICELESSpshhhht. Oh and a bit of foreshadowing for Odd Couple._

* * *

Megatron's No Good Very Bad Day

* * *

One very brisk December workday, not at all suspicious in any way, Megatron was walking down the sidewalk towards the glossy purple high-rise that was his company and life's work. He was finishing the last of his morning coffee, which was just how he liked it: very, very black. Like his heart. The sun was shining. Birds might have been singing, if they ever sang around Megatron…

Which they didn't.

He stopped at the newspaper-vendorbots, because that's what he always did, and gathered his six samples of what the world was up to. He liked seeing in text and judging for himself what was important: he never trusted such things to briefings or summaries, and scanning papers was somehow soothing to him, reminding him of his merciless grip on America as he saw his company's name in print three or four times a morning. He turned, ready to cross to his building and begin his newest day of morally questionable machinations, but suddenly stumbled back: with no word of warning, a very yellow child on a tiny orange _Sumdac_ scooter zoomed across his path and through a nearby puddle, sending a tidal-wave of filthy, cold grey water splashing up onto Megatron's designer suit and pants.

D-Con's distinguished President stood in front of the vendor-bots, frozen down to his Italian leather shoes. Farther down the sidewalk, the child cursed and pulled a screechy turn, then did nothing more than gape dumbly at the older man and the shock on his handsome face—a shock that was quickly curdling into anger. When Megatron moved—just a disbelieving flick of his fingers to clear the water dripping from his papers—the teenager gulped audibly and turned tail, _yikes_ing tensely as he zoomed off.

A sudden urge to kill the boy died quickly when he realized it would not fix his grey silk suit. He plucked at it, eyeing the traces of black oil that were greedily setting into the material. Megatron scowled and tried to disregard the thousand-dollar loss, one hand still wiping fruitlessly at the ugly stain as he scaled the steps to his company.

Once inside, he had to find out for himself, by pressing then jamming at the unresponsive red button, that the elevator was broken. Megatron's office, by virtue of his position, was on the top floor. Mouth curling, the older man turned and headed towards the stairs as he removed his soaked jacket and straightened his blood-red tie, wondering how this day could possibly get any better.

* * *

"You are _useless_—Hell, I could kick you all out and Megatron wouldn't even bat an eye! He hired me first! I can do everything you can and do it _better_, don't you even tempt me!"

"Replace me? You aren't fit to lick my shoes!"

"Pompous jackass!"

"Useless, sniveling little weasel!"

"Idiot! Idiot-idiot-_idiot!_"

"Momma's boy," Thundercracker hissed evilly, and with that, Starscream's narrow, scheming little face went white with rage.

Shrieking, he tackled his older brother, both of them soon twisting and snarling in a bundle on the floor as they attempted to punch each other in the gut. Skywarp hopped from foot to foot at a safe distance, biting his nails, looking up at the door every three seconds and begging them to stop.

"Oh, I do so _hate_ to see our brothers fight," Dirge purred from his desk, where he was leaning over the back of the chair to watch with greedy, shining eyes. "I always worry they'll hurt themselves…!"

"Then do something! _Do something_!" Skywarp squeaked, too terrified of being struck to even come within a foot of his older brothers' vicious struggles.

Of all six Seeker siblings, one would think Skywarp would be the one to huddle under his mother's wingspan--but not when their mother was a callous, calculating feline who would sooner slap her sons (and daughter) and throw them to the nursemaid than coddle them. They nearly killed her, after all; she had little to no regard for the squirming balls of meat that had nearly ripped her unto death in four grueling fifteen-hour labors. But if she was to feel warmth for one of her infinitely flawed offspring, it would be the miserable medium: Starscream.

His setbacks weren't so crippling as the others'. She couldn't even reason with Slipstream, as the viciously intelligent young woman hated her on principle, and besides that, their mother had the sneaking suspicion her only daughter was a raging lesbian and _dearly_ didn't want to get into that. A multitude of flaws though Starscream possessed, there was something to be made of the boy who, even from a very early age, showed remarkable potential for being a devious little wretch fully deserving of her genes.

She was a social ladder-climber herself: she had secured her infinitely loaded husband with underhanded tactics and an immovable mauve smile and matching nails. The Seeker heiress still viewed her clutch of children as the final cinderblock that would make divorce far too difficult to attempt, and in that way could abide their existence with a smile.

Affectionate as a she-cat could be, Starscream's mother taught him everything she knew about scheming, beating the odds and beating those who would not permit him to rise. He became her student and her only child, perhaps absorbing some of her cattier, heartless qualities along the way, and the rest of his siblings detested him for it. This was also quite unfortunate, as they couldn't stand each other in the first place, and happened to work at the same company within mere feet of one another's desks.

Thundercracker grunted as Starscream attempted to shove him underneath a desk, D-Con's second in command still aiming for that one precious smack in the gut as his sibling shouted about how inferior he was. Skywarp was nearly shrieking in nerve-wracking anguish by the time Megatron passed by the open doorway, stained jacket over his shoulder; the youngest of the triplets suddenly quieted with a pathetic squeak when the President loomed up behind him, level with the still-ongoing scuffle, his grey eyes blazing.

"Excuse me."

The President's deep, deep rumble was enough to freeze them both, ages-old hatred be damned. Starscream, on his back _as usual_, looked up and his eyes widened. Thundercracker cautiously (if angrily) did the same, gaping behind him where their superior stood with his arms crossed dangerously.

"And just what are we doing here?" he asked softly, one thick brow creeping up towards his impeccably combed silver hair.

Thankfully, they didn't fawn or make excuses or _honestly_ think they had a chance of getting out unscathed—this was too much of a ritual by now. He would deal with them later. Wasting his time would only make that 'dealing' more unpleasant.

The brothers separated, still glaring at each other, but sullenly went back to their work. Megatron, hiding a sigh, began once again on the forty-five-floor-high path to his office, sending one last glare over his shoulder to make sure they stayed in their seats as he left what was basically a nursery for one very, very flawed family.

Yes, they were quite pretty, but did he have to hire _all of them_?

* * *

He was only allowed one moment of relief once the doors to his office clicked shut. He had multiple calls waiting, all of his call buttons blinking an alarm red. Frowning densely at the callboard, smelling disaster already, Megatron sat himself in his leather armchair with a thoroughly exhausted groan and accessed the first line.

"Mr. President, I have troubling prospects for the launching of the new AD missiles. According to the approximations on price and assembly as projected by the technical staff, the entire project will be doomed if so much as one investor backs out--"

Perhaps more brusquely than he should have, he rerouted Cyclonus' call to intel. He was a valuable man, true, but just listening to his dark monotone and gloomy forecasts about the entire business crashing down about their ears made Megatron want to rub at his temples. Next, the President actually looked at the waiting calls, choosing between the names below each button. There was one man he could count on being totally impartial…

"Soundwave, updates?"

"Affirmative: problem. Prometheus Black escaped from prison last week."

"_What_? He was due for release in a month! Why couldn't he just sit still?" Megatron roared, rocketing from annoyed to aggravated in an instant, then gritting his teeth. A _week_ ago? Why didn't anyone think to _tell_ him?! He snorted. "Bring him in, then, if he's wandering the damn streets."

"Further complication: Black re-captured. Security doubled. Privileges revoked. Legal advisers considering relocation to mental institution."

No--his plan, decimated! He had made a special deal with the state penitentiary that Black would be released after his term was served and come immediately into his employment, and it had taken no small amount of talking. He _needed_ the man's researching skill for the next wave of bio-weapons! Without him, the project crashed to a halt, and now he was being shipped to a _mental institution_?

"Set up a conference call with officer Fanzone. See if you can negotiate with the state prison. I need Black in one piece, not trussed up in a straight jacket, as charming as the man looks in white," Megatron snarled at length, reaching to switch lines, but Soundwave's powerful electronically-synthesized monotone stopped him again.

"Prediction: results negative. Black attempted lethal assault on Sumdac heir. Previous deal broken: penitentiary sentenced him to no less than ten years. Considering life."

Surely the urge to bang his head against the desk had a lot more to do with his stained suit than the fact that life was conspiring against him in every conceivable way. Surely.

"You have your orders, Soundwave. Execute them."

A pause, then—

"And get that goddamn voice synthesizer fixed so you sound like a human being!"

_Click_.

"OH GREAT AND MIGHTY MEGATRON, YOUR INGENIUS PATROL SCHEDULE IS WORTHY OF EVERLASTING PRAISE AND YOUR DEFENSES ARE RUNNING FLAWLESSLY WITH YOUR TWO LOYAL—"

_Click_.

Lugnut.

The ex-wrestler was so grateful to be picked up out of the entertainment business, even if it was for sake of being security (or 'dumb muscle', as Starscream preferred to sneer), that he had nothing but praises to sing about the silver-haired entrepreneur. Again and again. On Megatron's lunch break. On his cellphone. Leaving messages. Sometimes longer than five minutes, all filled with disturbingly passionate vocabulary that sounded all the more disturbing in that dumb roar of his.

Although Lugnut and his massive lady-love made an incredibly fearsome and mustached team, equally adept at flanking the front gates of D-Con industries and carrying shipments of illegal substances to waiting trucks, it was still… rather obnoxious. Rubbing at his eyes, Megatron accessed the next channel.

"Oh Mr. President, powerful and gracious, could I but beg for the tiniest morsel of your precious time to—"

Click.

Sunstorm. More of the same, save in a sniveling, greasy tone. The most obnoxious of the Seeker brood, in a way. Megatron truly had no need for sycophants and found their blabber irritating: it was only their unwavering loyalty he needed. Wretches like Lugnut and Sunstorm would be best mute. He clicked to another channel.

"Megatronnnnn! I've been waiting for _ages_ for you to drop me a _line_, how's my favorite customer?" the man on the other line cooed, connection as velvety-clear as his voice.

"Make your point, Swindle, and make it quickly," the warlord intoned fearsomely. "I am in no mood for well-mannered prevarication or inane flatteries."

"Well, uh, if you put it _that_ way—"

Swindle laughed, plastic and forced, apparently to buy time as he rustled around with something, possibly adjusting those horribly tacky purple glasses of his.

"If you want it _straight_, Mr. President, there's been a bit of a _delay_ with the shipments. Not that it's a _big_ one, mind you, but—"

"Explain."

"Our holder, uh, dropped out. Said it was too _much to handle_! Too big, too risky, yadda-yadda. But no worries, I've got a guy! He's the perfect hermit for the job, lives on the edges of Detroit and agreeable as a kid with candy given the right pay-off! He's carried for me before, we're practically _set_."

Swindle chuckled brightly, detailing the expected drop-off dates. Megatron stared stonily at the opposite wall, finger once more poised above the 'end call' button.

"Just take care of it. I need those weapons."

"Of _course_, Megatron, y'know you don't need to look any further than me! But if I could steal a moment of your time to possibly interest you in an addition to your—"

**Click.**

His eyebrow raised as he found he had another call from his communications officer, who never forgot to tell him anything.

_Click-click._

"Soundwave?"

Only rustling answered him, then his communication officer's voice filtered in, flat and far-away. Megatron grit his teeth.

"_Soundwa-a-ave_."

There was a pause and then footsteps, then someone clattering with equipment.

"Apologies. Ravage stepped on intercom."

"What? I told you, there are to be no _pets_ in this _office_," Megatron hissed out, having reminded his third of just such a thing yesterday, when he found Soundwave watching the scrawny black thing lap milk out of a bowl on his _spotless_ _desk_. "Get rid of that cat before I throw it out for Shockwave's target practice. _Now_! And don't let those two goddamned nephews of yours into the office again, that's what the nursery services are for!"

_Click._

_Click-click._

"Yo, uh, Megs—we gotta bituva problem heah, 'bout the place you picked for the new outpost?"

"What is it, Scrapper?" he asked dully, the sound of clanking and construction work in the background, along with the bad connection, driving him to squint.

"It's uh, not dere anymore."

"Whaaaaat?"

He had paid over one million dollars for that plot. If he paid a million dollars for a plot of land, he expected it to be there when he sent people to work on it!

Megatron's sculpted hands were flat on the desk, mouth open in a flabbergasted and ultimately furious gape: it was a pity that the dense construction worker couldn't see his expression, or else he might have cleaned up his answer a little bit.

"Uh, it's, uh, not dere. It used ta be, but it ain't anymoe." There was some rustling and three sharp clunks. "Is dis thing on?"

"How can an entire plot of land simply… get up… and disappear?" Megatron growled through his teeth, feeling the color rise in his neck as Scrapper yelled at Mixmaster to check and see if the line was plugged in, then apparently rammed his mouth so close to the speaker it caused a squeak of feedback, making Megatron boil.

"Eyeyey, don't ask me. I don't make the land, I just build on it! And I'm tellin' you, Megs, this whole foundation-layin' thing ain't gonna go no further cos'a, uh, lack a infrastructure and a, uh… well, hell-- just a great big goddamn hole, if ya get what I—"

**CLICK**—snap.

Megatron removed his finger from the end-call button; it remained jammed into the machine. He'd broken it. His anger crested and deflated in one incendiary, exhausting second, all somehow encompassed and symbolized by that miserable broken button. Despondently, he shifted up three rows and poked in another button, shutting the entire thing off.

Before he could sit back in his chair and knead his face to death, there was a polite knock at the door.

"Parcel for you, sir."

Shockwave's deceptively urbane voice, almost weak, filtered in through the com-speaker. Megatron pushed the button to unlock the door and his most trusted subordinate walked in, prim pace matching his pallid complexion and the disturbingly long fingers which had locked around not a few throats in his time. Shockwave reached his desk and sat the basket down in front of the older man, who only reached for it because he had to.

It was a care package of sorts, with crackers and other nasty packaged things, clearly only meant to display the bottle with the golden liquor sitting in the middle of all that useless hay-stuff. Megatron plucked at the tag. It was blank.

"An apology for this morning, I believe."

"The seal is broken," Megatron grumbled needlessly, glaring at the slightly ripped wax around the neck of the bottle. It was just a little crack, one possibly endured in shipping, but coming from the man it did…?

"I noticed as well, sir," the other man noted, clearly bored. This was not at all the most clever thing Starscream had ever thought up, and he'd become so accustomed and desensitized to the second's attempts to attack their President that the sub-par nature of this particular jab almost depressed him.

Megatron eyed the bottle, heavy brows low. He hated it when Starscream was hasty. He hated it even more that he wasn't in the mood to be impressed by his scheming mind or enraged by his treachery, much less toss away what was once a perfectly good bottle of Crown Royal. It hit the bottom of the trashcan with a horribly heavy thunk, contents glugging out. Shockwave bowed as if to dismiss himself, but his superior only let him get halfway across the room before slumping over his desk.

"Shockwave…" Megatron rumbled miserably.

"Yes sir?"

"What have I done wrong?"

Shockwave paused tactfully, sole remaining eye blank as the rest of his plain face.

"That's a rather large question, my liege. Where and with what focus should I begin? Furthermore, to what definition of wrong are you referring—functionally incorrect, ill-executed or moral?"

Megatron sighed deeply, finally leaning back in his big leather chair with a forlorn creak. Then, as Shockwave watched in confusion, the President righted himself, pulled a glass out from his desk, fished the dripping bottle of Crown Royal out from the waste-bin and poured the rest of it into his glass, hardly acknowledging his bodyguard's budding protest as he threw it back in three scalding gulps.

His glass hit the desk empty, followed by his head, both with a hollow thunk.

"I'm surrounded by idiots."


	15. What Women Want

A/N: As per Anime Huggler's request-slash-suggestion, I gave the Constructicons a go. I honestly think Scrapper, while not the smartest thing on the planet, has a heart of gold somewhere in him. Mixmaster, on the other hand, is just a brute and I HATES HIM.

Sorry about the NO-it-can't-just-be-a-random-stripper gig here, but I have big only-going-to-be-alluded-to plans for this… Mehehe. MEHEHEHE. Wooohohoh.

What ME? That's not the sound of me being EVIL, that's the sound of me being nice to my OC's for once! … Well, not HERE, but later. Love is found in the strangest of places :3

_Characters: Scrapper, Mix-master, (NOT RILLY SURPRISE)_

_Pairings: Scrapper/(NOT RILLY SURPRISE)_

_Warnings: You might fall in love with Scrapper.  
_

* * *

What Women Want

* * *

If the air was thin at that level of the structure, at least it saved the workers from the smog of the city—or it would have, if they hadn't been in Automaton city that was so goddamn proud of their 70-percent reduced carbon emissions. There wasn't any smog to dodge, and that fact left most of the construction workers pacing from station to station feeling strangely loopy for all the oxygen they were getting. As proof of this, Mix-master tossed down a giant drill at least a foot too close to Scrapper's butt and leaned heavily against the nearest support column, tugging his jacket tighter around his heavy gut.

"Wouldju believe dis? Can't believe we got dragged down ta Detroit just ta lay some gaddamn bars in the middle'a winta, it stinks worse'n New York. The air's all, like, reekin' a'forest junk!"

Despite the fact that Mix's partner had been forced to leave his new puppy, Snarl, back in New York and called in daily to check up on the little nipper, the sad attempt at change in subject didn't do a thing to better Scrapper's slump.

"She had a real nice nose," he sighed to no one in particular, after a too-long pause. Mix glared at him, officially irritated with his buddy's lack of concentration—and his goddamned gloomy _sighs_. Because men, _real men_, didn't _sigh_.

"It was a _strip joint_," Mix barked, then scratched at his helmet. "Granted, dey didn't do much strippin', but ya weren't even s'posed ta be lookin at her face!"

"I can't stop tinkin' about 'er, Mix," he mumbled, setting his blocky chin in his hands with a dreamy expression. "She's just… beeyutiful."

"She's _hat_. F'you wanna dink a girl, she's hat. Quit usin' words like dat, makes ya sound like a pansy-ass…"

Looking down at the street, his scowl disintegrated immediately: Mix spied a nice-looking red-head with a short skirt and raised his head—in a construction site, it was a little like seeing a colony of unshaven meer-cats, what with so many yellow-hatted heads poking out of gratings when a pretty girl walked by—and gave a splitting whistle

"Hey bay-bee, show me your ass! Dat _ass_, goil! You'sa compact, wit' dat ass! Dat's it, strut it! Yeeeaaa—what!"

Mix grunted; Scrapper had scrambled to his feet and grabbed his sleeve, long scruffy face anxious.

"H-hey, quit dat!" he sputtered, staring down at the girl. She was glaring daggers at the whole of the building, which was emitting cacophonous whistles and shouts. Another girl, not even targeted yet, was already regarding them with scorn. She somehow locked eyes, five stories up, with Scrapper (or he imagined she did) and he half-flinched away.

"What?" Mix looked at him like he was insane, and surely he was. It was like being called out after passing the salt. Mix's beady eyes narrowed. "Y'mean… cat-callin?"

"Well, uh—yeah. I mean… I tink ladies'd like it betta if we was nicer to 'em," Scrapper said doubtfully, then yelped when Mix slapped him over the head, gloves cracking against his construction helmet. He winced away from the heavy man, who was now jabbing his finger in his face.

"Whassamadderwidyou, you was whistling up here just yestaday!"

"Well, I, uh, changed my mind." Scrapper scratched his chin and bit his lip. "Taday."

Mix gave a scoff of disgust, taking off his helmet to rub at his shaven head in disbelief before popping it back on and moaning:

"Scrapper, Scrapper, how'd you git mixed _up_ in dis business! You know everythin' there is ta know about concrete'n girders, but _wimmin_? I've give ya a lesson on broads, buddy, on the house. Barefoot in da kichin is da only place for 'em an' ya don't give 'em another gaddamn thought afta dat. An' if they don't got dinna ready for ya when ya walk in da door, ya kick 'em out and go git anodda. Wimmin wanna be _owned_ and _used_, man!"

When Scrapper only blinked at him—because that wasn't quite what he'd read on the internet, even if there was a lot of, erm, photographic evidence to the contrary—Mix-master reached forward and snagged his big chin, bending down until he was inches from his partner's wide eyes.

"Repeat afta me, dumb-ass. Wimmin wanna be used."

"Wimmin wanna be used," Scrapper said blankly, lips pursed above Mix's squeezing fingers.

"Dere ya go, dat's all you need ta know!" Mix said, then gave the lanky man another slap, this time to the shoulder, and straightened his cap with a business-like grunt and a burp. "Now quit draggin' yer pansy-ass, uh… _ass_, we got pipes ta lay."

Scrapper hung his head one last time, sighed, and put his gloves back on.

* * *

Later that week, Mix and his crew (sans Dirt-Boss—they got enough of him at the site) were at a bar. Megatron had given them a bottomless tab there: it was the deal-breaker for agreeing to the job, really. The mid-winter work was grueling and sudden, not to mention it had interrupted another project in New York, but even if Megs paid really, really well, their team couldn't resist more beer than they could drink.

Scrapper's little moping fit had dragged on in the space in-between, though he limited it to just 'being quiet' while on the job and pouting when alone. The absurdly tall man, looking like a scarecrow when bundled on a bar-stool, nodded and gave wan grins when the team started their regular ritual of talking trash about anyone in the surrounding area. Bored and exhausted, he was scanning the assembled drinkers with little interest when he suddenly froze, as though hoping against hope that the woman seated three down from him was real, much less who he thought she was.

When she turned to pillow her cheek on her hand, full lips pursed, Scrapper leapt up and tugged at Mix's shirt, whisper much more like a very insistent but low-decibel roar.

"Whaddya-whaddya—hey, _hey_ ya dumb galoot--

"Mix! _Mix_!" He pointed with indecorous obviousness, seeing as she was only seated ten feet from him. "It's _her_."

Mix stopped in the middle of batting the lanky idiot away, then squinted outside their circle of overall'd workers.

"…That she is! Wellden, whaddya waitin' fo, Scrappa?" Mix said suddenly, sly, beady eyes fixed on the woman. "Go'n gitcher—_girl_!"

This last word was punctuated by a jarring shove towards the woman seated at the bar, making him stumble and finally fall into the seat next to her, fairly ringing from his ears. She stared at him, startled. Her eyes were brown. He hadn't noticed that.

"Uh. Hi," Scrapper gulped dully, raising his hand and wiggling his fingers. The woman smiled at him, small and kind, for lack of better and more informed things to do.

"Hi there," she responded slowly, _brown_ eyes flickering past him and to the knot of construction workers trying to hide their guffaws in their bear-paws. He saw where she was looking and sort-of-kind-of moved in front of her, embarrassed down to the tips of his toes. He hoped they weren't saying anything about her, _please_ say they weren't saying anything about her.

"I, uh—I was jist---I mean, the bar—" Scrapper swallowed so loudly that she actually heard it; his Adam's apple punched his chin and nearly touched his collar-bone. He smiled as though nauseated, showing off a surprisingly white set of even, blocky teeth. "Whaddya drinkin'?"

She blinked.

"Bud Light?"

"You can, heh, you can akshually stomach dat stuff?" he chortled, then waved his hands. "I mean, uh, no affense, but dat's dirty wata. Plus, uh, sewage."

"That's why I like it," she said, laughing a little. "It's so disgusting that it's satisfying. Keeps me from drinking too much."

"What, 'cos ya get sick after a bottle?"

"Just about."

There was a small bit of comfortable silence—too much for Scrapper to hope for, really, which is why she had to squint in the low light of the bar, leaning towards him for a moment before her pretty brown eyes widened.

"Wait a minute. You're from the club."

If the lights had been up, she would have seen the blush that followed the deathly-white bleaching of his long face. As it was, she just saw him duck his head and scrub a huge hand through his thinning brown hair, broad shoulders hunched.

"_Uh. Well, uh._ Not rilly. But yeah. I mean, I don' make a habit'a goin' ta places like that. I mean, not dat I _disagree_ with watcha do, it's just, um, just fine. A job, yannoe, I know how dat is. It was just, yannoe, a guys night out and I—yannoe, Mix made me come--"

"It's alright," she said heavily, like she'd heard the same speech too many times—guys professing to end up in an exotic dancing club by accident, pretending to be decent. Pretending not to be guys, really, led by that dumb thing between their legs. He didn't like the way she looked away from him, pillowing her chin on her hand again, tone slightly wistful. "Without guys' nights out, I think the Lonely Hearts Club would shut down in record speed."

"Wouldja be sad?" Scrapper asked after a second, talking low so no one else would hear. In case she, you know, wanted it to stay private. She blinked at him.

"What about?"

"If da club shut down. Wouldja be sad?"

"That's a really complicated question," she said with a bitter quirk of her mouth, turning to watch the soundless chaos of the football rerun on the bar TV.

"Can I, uh… buy you a nodda?" he asked haltingly, scooting a little into her periphery and nodding at her empty beer-bottle. She gave him another look, this time infinitely more suspicious, and he shook his head. "Just 'cos yannoe… ya don't look like you're soused enough to see the Sooners lose ta Texas Tech again. And I don', uh… I don' mind complicated questions, so long's they got answers."

The look stayed—the steady gaze of those almond eyes made his heart beat a little faster—and her magenta mouth was about to twitch into a smile--a no-funny-business smile, but a smile from a pretty woman nonetheless--when something forced itself in between them. Scrapper gasped and rocked back, nearly tipping his stool over. The bar creaked under Mixmaster's beer-heavy weight as he looked the dancer up and down with an ugly smirk.

"Hey baybee, you lookin' mighty fine tonight. Lemme inner-duce myself, y'can call me Mix. My buddy here's a little, yannoe, dense, so I'll make it easy for 'im and say that he's ah, had his eye on ya and we was just wonderin' if ya'd be up for a little round da block wit'—"

It was like poisoning a well—all that water Scrapper had worked to bring up from the dry ground, hands purple and blue with his own embarrassment and shot nerves, was suddenly black all the way down. The woman gave an impatient, disgusted expression and gathered her coat from the stool next to her, Scrapper watching every motion with wide, horrified eyes.

"Hey, hey, where you goin', dolly, we just gat sta-ted—"

"Thank you for the offer," she said coldly, looking at Scrapper over Mix's greasy head. Her bright clothing disappeared under the coat as she turned and stalked towards the bar door. Watching her go, it took Scrapper a few seconds to register what had kind of cataclysm had just happened. Once it hit him like the mack-truck it was, he grabbed the front of Mix's shirt so quickly he knocked the woman's empty Bud Light bottle over.

"Ya chased her awff—_ya chased her awff_!" he howled into Mix's face, rattling him by the overall straps, then bolted out the door after her, big feet slap-slap-slapping away.

"Stupid putz! Ain't like ya had yer kids named! They 'probly wouldn'a been yours anyways!" he shouted after the swinging door, sending the clump of workers into a gale of laughter and sweaty bottles clinking together.

* * *

"I wanna take ya out ta dinna!"

The man's shout echoed in the parking lot. Walking even faster, Torque pulled her coat tighter around her neck, scowling at the clogged parking lot.

"I don't go out with customers. It's the rule."

She had barely shouted it (and almost reached her car to end this damn night, this _goddamned miserable night_) when the skinny, enormously tall man jumped in front of her, blocking her hand from the door-handle. She made a shocked, angry noise. Putting up a hand, he bent to pant a little.

"I wadn't a customer, I was justa—justa—innocent bystanda! Ya gotta believe me!" he protested when he found the breath, then bent for more.

When she snorted and tried to push around him, he grabbed her wrist in his callused hand, then immediately dropped it with a gasp, as if burned. She looked up, more startled by his reaction than the fact he'd tried to grab her. His long, rough face was aghast, obviously shocked by his own actions, but he still found the words he so desperately needed to say.

"Please. I'm only in town for a week'a two, on a job, so I won't be 'round long to botha ya. I ain't eva gonna botha ya. Promise."

He shifted from foot to foot in the parking lot, coat-less and white-faced, and wet his lips. Her confusion gave him enough time to take a shuddering breath and reach for her again, this time very slowly, and only for the very tips of her small fingers.

"I don' even know ya name and I just wanna take ya out. Proper. No funny business. Just one date. Don' even… don' even hafta be in the evenin'. Can be anytime ya wants. We can make it brekfist, if dat's watcha wants."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Are you drunk?"

"Nope." He shook his head, then muttered thickly, "I can't say da alphabit backwards even sober, though, so I can't rilly prove it."

Somehow, she smiled. Smiled, at him, the guy who'd stupidly grabbed for her. And she stayed a little bit longer, even if her hand was still reaching for her door-handle.

"What do you… do?" she asked after a long silence, husky voice soft.

"Oh, me? Construction," he said lamely, nervous at the subject change and scratching at his scarf-less neck just to let go of his impetuous hold on her fingertips. He shouldn't have tried to touch her at all. She probably thought he was some sort of pervert, even if her pretty almond eyes didn't say that at all.

They looked at one another for a moment—or she looked at him and he looked at her knees—then she shook her head and put a hand on his arm.

"Thank you for the offer," she said again, this time distinctly sad. "But I don't date."

"Y'don't date… customas?" Scrapper mumbled, feeling his stomach drop out through the knees of his work overalls at the look on her face.

"I don't date. Period."

He moved away at the slightest push from her, watching with a hurt expression as she silently got into her car. Without looking at him, she shoved it into gear and drove off. After a minute of standing in the cold parking lot, Scrapper bowed his head and went back inside to a chorus of guffaws and whistles.


	16. Heartbreak

A/N: Bee finally gets a chance to do something other than Adorable Fail. Which is… Adorable Wangst with a side of Fail. BAWWWW.

I didn't have this planned from the beginning, but I think it's right. I think.

_Characters: Optimus, Bumblebee, Sari-centric, mention of Elita and Sentinel_

_Pairings: Sari/Bumblebee, Optimus/Elita/Sentinel triangle mention._

_Warnings: None—possible OOCness for Bee, to be safe. But in this 'verse at least, Bee is an insecure-as-hell little bugger and Sari is his WORLD, so his reaction makes sense. And is adorable. _

* * *

Heartbreak

* * *

_Sounds like someone has a severe case of the ninja-hiccups_, Optimus thought as he cleaned the last of his dishes, glancing over at the hallway and the first door on the left, plastered with at least seventeen band posters and rude "GET OUT" signs.

The hiccups were so-called because they snuck up fast and struck to kill, and the nickname was something indigenous to Optimus and Bee's family. Just thinking about it made him smile a little… even if family-life always seemed a little more rosy-colored when you weren't in the thick of it, holding two screaming kids by their ankles while your uncles bickered in the next room. He couldn't hear the ever-present howl and digital shriek of Bee's video-games, though, nor his incredibly awful punk music, and couldn't imagine that hiccups would keep him from either of those. Curious (and needing something to keep his mind off of work, where Sentinel had been an absolute terror since the Sumdac Tower crisis) Optimus approached Bee's messy door and gave it a quick knock. He heard a rustle.

"Who is it?"

"It's, uh… It's Oh-Pee," he said as glibly as he could, a little off-put at Bee's stuffy tone. There was a dangerously long pause, then another rustle and a muted click at the door-handle. The Prime waited until he heard another rustle before entering, cautiously pushing the door in, suddenly prepared for the worst.

"Bee? What's… up, little guy?"

He winced at the nickname—he couldn't help it, seeing his little cousin curled up so small—but Bumblebee didn't even notice it, biting off violent hiccups with his wet face crammed into the sleeve of his hoodie.

"Sari'n me broke up," he muttered thickly after a long, long silence, then tore at his red face for what must have been the tenth time, hating the wetness and the weakness of it.

"I'm so sorry," Optimus murmured, at a profound loss. He walked over and sat next to Bee, leaning anxiously on his knees. Bee didn't look at him, round face and puffy eyes directed at the floor.

Girls might be experienced in heart-to-hearts, but Optimus hadn't had very many of these guy conversations—boys like Bee probably weren't even aware of where their hearts were until that moment, honestly. Even when Elita had a moment with Sentinel, the burly blond would just jolt to his feet when Optimus opened the door, stalking past him and trying not to wipe at his ruddy face, leaving his roommate stymied and worried.

Optimus shook his head to clear the memory, studying the slouch of his little cousin's yellow back. He checked the urge to touch the teen.

"When did it happen?"

"This after—afternoon. After school. She picked me up like always and—and—"

He sucked in a shivering breath and choked, holding his breath until he couldn't any longer: the bottled-up sob escaped with a mortifying jerk and a squeak, sending Bee back into a crouching position.

"I m-m-miss her," he whimpered, voice muffled by his sleeves. "I'm scared I'm n-never gonna… never gonna see her again. I d-don't wanna lo—I don't want her to disappear like we were never—n-never--"

It was then Optimus realized just how much Sari meant to him: that this was a pugnacious, rude, slightly idiotic, _human_ seventeen-year-old boy losing both his girlfriend and his best friend in one brutal blow. He was desperately afraid of what he'd be without her: just another scrub chasing skirts and falling on his face, because she'd taken all of his worth when she left him. The elder's expression became both tender and conflicted, and he had to search for a little before he found the right words. He took a deep breath, clasping his hands in his lap.

"You guys are really close, Bumblebee. You're not necessarily going to lose her just because she isn't your girlfriend. There are other ways to see each other."

"I th-thought I—"

Bee shook his head sharply. He had to cry for another minute or two before he found his voice again. When he did, it was a raw, scared whisper.

"I l-loved her."

Optimus closed his dry eyes for a moment, hearing someone else's voice (in the dark after a gun-shot, before the fist in his gut and the sound of sirens), then nodded.

"You do. You love her. And I bet she loves you, too."

Bee looked up at him, his expression that of a lost kid, finally helpless and desperate for guidance—for an answer that would make everything make sense _and_ take the pain away _and_ give him what he was convinced was the love of his life back.

"Then—then _why_—"

"There are… lots of different kinds of love, Bee. It's not all getting married and having kids, right? Like the way I love you," Optimus offered, only slightly hesitant. "I want to make sure you eat right and get to work on time and call your mom every so often…"

He was encouraged by Bumblebee, who managed to contort his face into something nasty, both at the mention of Optimus loving him and the stupid ways he showed it. Optimus smiled faintly and tapped him on the forehead.

"--and make sure you're happy. That's always my main concern, provided you… you know, eat your vegetables. But you can find your own kind of love for Sari that isn't 'boyfriend-girlfriend' love. And I'm sure, after a little while, it will be just as great as what you had when you were dating. You just have to give it a chance. If you were her friend as well as her boyfriend, you will."

After a long time of sitting side-by-side in the messy room, Bee nodded shakily. Optimus finally let out the breath he had been holding, feeling like he'd passed some sort of blitzkrieg Big Cousin test no one had told him to study for. He'd done alright. Bumblebee's heart was still intact.

He watched the little boy shudder himself down to stillness and waited a little to make his exit, knowing Bee, even in such a state, would only allow a masculine back-pat and a quiet retreat from his older cousin. But when Optimus put his hand on the boy's back, Bumblebee stared up at him and a fresh stream of tears coursed down his pink cheeks and the next second he was half in Optimus' lap, bawling hard into the older man's chest. It took a moment of shock for the Prime to pick up the slack and wrap his arm around Bumblebee's heaving back with a small, disbelieving smile, but he managed it.

It never changed. The first heartbreak was always the hardest.

But Bumblebee would bounce back. He always did, with a life-lesson or two as a bonus. Once he set to rubbing his little cousin's back, listening to his sobs come and go (as would the people in his life, each precious and unique and vital to shaping who he was and who he would become), Optimus' smile faltered and turned sad. Shaking his head, he thought of a man who never recovered from his first heartbreak.

However it ended, at least Sari had truly cared for Bumblebee; Sentinel had never had the luxury of returned love, and Optimus still regretted that with every cell in his body.


	17. Tangled Web

A/N: B'AWWWWW SENTINEL. I don't like the end of this piece AT ALL, but BAWWWWWSENTINEL.

_Characters: Optimus, Elita-1/Blackarachnia, Sentinel, brief Ironhide_

_Pairings: Optimus/Elita-1/Sentinel Academy madness, Optimus/Blackarachnia_

_Warnings: Flashback collection thing. Psycho-ass BA and Lovestruck Sentinel. I paint Elita as a bit of a manipulative bitch here, but a) we all do stupid things when we think we're in love and in accordance to the slightly-less-dramatic OM version of events that caused Elita to go nuts b) I don't think all that evilness just popped outta nowhere when she turned into BA. Also, GOD I hate writing her.  
_

* * *

Tangled Web

* * *

"So—"

Optimus looked up from his check-out log, paused half-way through typing in the call number of 'Of Mice and Machines'. He spent most of his volunteer hours at the Academy working the library desk, fond as he was of the quiet and the opportunity to access old history videos. Ironhide was leaning on his desk, customary 'bit-o-twig' in his wide mouth. At Optimus' questioning tone, the big teen nodded off to the back of the library, research section.

"Sentinel and Elita—y'think they're paired off?"

Tiny, busty frame loaded down with five encyclopedias, Elita stumbled slightly on a bit of carpet and Sentinel's big hand caught her waist, nudging her back in line. A look of near-annoyance flashed over the girl's face, then she caught Optimus' blank, pondering stare and she gave him a strained smile. She turned toward the big blond when Sentinel leaned over her shoulder and said something in her ear, hand inching towards her waist again.

It must have been an offer to carry her books. Elita shook her head, mouth too thin, and nearly walked off without him. Ironhide grunted and shrugged.

"Work in progress, looks like. Y'know the second he got to home-base with her, he'd be braggin' all over the place. That's just Sentinel."

"I don't think so," Optimus said slowly, watching Sentinel smile and trail after the tiny girl with his football swagger, eyes locked only on the sway of her pony-tail. "Elita is… different for him."

The two boys had met her in the Academy, and she came between them effortlessly—but she _fit_ there, even with their matching broad shoulders, and she talked between them and they talked over her head in a perfect little triad.

Optimus always knew Sentinel had an eye for her, but lately, what with the protective, reverent way his best friend acted around her… Sentinel was edging on _covetous_. Even Optimus' approach, if unexpected, resulted in a split-second of alpha male ripples and stand-offishness if her curvy female presence was under his arm. Then, after a little cough, it was back to brash, bragging Sentinel, one thick arm around Optimus, the other around Elita.

Optimus frowned, cursor blinking endlessly in the call-number box. Something had changed. Something big.

And, if he wasn't mistaken, it was also very, very bad.

* * *

It was bad.

It _was_ bad, but it was also a way to talk to him. She shouldn't have done it, but she still felt a thrill under her too-tight skin as Optimus met her green-blue eyes uncomprehendingly, handsome face wary in the shade under the awning.

She took the deepest breath of her life.

"I… I slept with him."

It was followed by the longest silence of her life.

"'Lita."

_He_ sighed her name (his name for her, so sweet), low and dull, then shook his head just as slowly, looking as though those four words had placed matching cinderblocks on his back.

"Elita, you have to tell him. He needs to know."

She had told _him_ before, in another under-awning confession: she did not love Sentinel.

The bulky football player, fueled by ego, was someone who drew her in for sheer magnitude of his feelings for her. The way he acted when he was alone with her, the way he looked at her, like his whole world would be transformed if she just touched him--it was enough to convince her it was a good idea, if just because Sentinel _wanted it_. Sentinel wanted it and she gave it (in the dark of her tiny room when Chromia wasn't there, heart beating so hard she couldn't feel anything but the tips of her fingers and then it was over and she was curled against his sweat-streaked chest), but she did not love him.

She did not love Sentinel. She _could not_ love Sentinel, not when the center of her life was standing in front of her, looking like she had struck him personally—but not in any form of jealousy. Her act wounded him, for Sentinel's sake. For sake of his best friend.

In that second, she finally knew where she stood with noble, pure Optimus would-be Prime, and she realized she had never wanted to find out.

She was nothing but a dishonest friend, hurting another friend. She was a complication and a disappointment. There would be no bubble-up of jealousy, no twist of those sculpted lips; there would be no strained confession because he couldn't stand her sleeping with another man. Her fantasies (so certain of finding herself in Optimus' strong arms, against his chest, crushing her so tight it hurt because _that was how much it hurt him_), disintegrated, leaving ash in her throat.

Optimus' blue eyes bore into her, blank with the simplicity of his emotion.

"That's… it?" Her voice sounded shrill even to herself. Her hands reached out—imploring him to _see the way she looked at him_, even now. "You're not… embarrassed, upset—angry, anything?"

"Just… sad. For Sentinel's sake," he said too quietly, turning away from her.

As she watched, he shook his head again and slid his hands in his pockets of his jeans (he'd given her his academy jacket for the cold and she swam in its red folds) and left her alone under the awning in the bright October sunshine. She watched his figure retreat across the Green, all the blood seeming to drain from her crushed blue-black veins as he got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared altogether.

_Well_, she pretended to say to herself, _at least she knew_.

He didn't care about her—if not at _all_, then in that way. He never did. He never would. No matter how many cart-wheels she turned to get his attention, no matter how she pleaded—Optimus would never love her. Never.

Too angry to cry, Elita-1 ripped Optimus' jacket off of her, throwing it into the gutter running by the back of the Academy building and screaming to the blue-white sky until her voice and her knees failed her.

She'd fucked that idiot for nothing.

* * *

And nothing was all she was left with. Until now.

"You didn't look twice at me when I was perfect."

A black-polished nail traced a news-paper clipping, one of many—always similar headlines, like 'So-and-So Rescued' and 'Officers Feeling the Fuel-crunch'.

_Puppy and blind orphans rescued from out-of-control train_, she thought with a caustic smirk.

No matter the assembly of officers, there was always one man. In the background, usually. Always smiling. Always with the same broad chest, that had filled out so much since football.

"But then I figured you out. You, your so-called hero compulsions, your goddamn savior complexes: you're drawn to the scent of failure and hopelessness like a shark to blood. You don't like people who can't survive without you. You're a user, just like me. Now I'm just screwed-up enough for you to love, and I'll take you any way I can get you."

Blackarachnia, a tattered black stain on her grey-washed sheets, curled up against the bare wall against the bed and stared at the handsome officer emblazoned on yesterday's newspaper. He was finally at the head of the crowd, frozen mid-step by the flash of a camera. His mouth was open, as if shouting at people to stay back. So they didn't get hurt.

He never wanted anybody to get hurt, but they always did.

Black-ringed eyes still locked on the Third Prime's face, Blackarachnia reached up and pulled the light-switch to her dying bulb, reducing the tiny, dirty room to black sheets and strips of moonlight.

"I'll be here for you, Optimus, waiting in the dark. I'll be here until you realize you need me just as much as I need you."

She chuckled, deep and rough, and pressed the white-grey paper to her dark lips, drawing away and admiring the sanguine stain left on Optimus' shadow-sliced throat.

"We can feed off of each other until there's nothing left."


	18. Steps

A/N: Just a (depressing) moment, optional. Lockdown's about… 28 at this point and Torque's 17. This is about half a year after he hitch-hikes his way to Detroit.

_Characters: Lockdown, Torque_

_Pairings: none_

_Warnings: none_

* * *

Steps

* * *

She hadn't thought anything of it. Normal people wouldn't, but then again, that would be implying that the two of them were normal.

He came in from his shift at five—or what she could only assume was his shift. They didn't talk in the slightest, but his side of the rent hadn't floundered, so it was probable he still had a job. The door slammed; Torque looked over from her homework to see him kneading at his bulky sun-reddened shoulders, settling on the couch and grimacing to himself as though she wasn't even there. Business as usual.

When she came up behind him a few minutes later and slid her hands over his knotted shoulders, feeling generous and a bit tired of trying to ignore him in return, the last thing she was expecting was for Lockdown to nearly slap her off. Flinching, he jerked around and glared at her like she was the stupidest fuck in the world for attempting to do such a thing. The tension, always at an apathetic simmer between the two, spiked to an ugly hiss.

Torque tilted her head when he turned back around, brows knitting as Lockdown settled into the couch like the barricaded castle it was, snatching up the remote.

"Let me guess. The only time anyone's ever touched you is either to slap you or screw you."

The uncomprehending, blindly vicious glare he gave her evolved quickly, moving through a spectrum of confusion, surprise, defensiveness and split-second exposure, but he yanked it back to the same standoffish expression and didn't oblige her with so much as a quirk of his mouth. He turned away from her again, once more willing her to disappear into the cheap wallpaper; he tensed when her hands descended on his shoulders again, firm and even as her voice.

"Hey. I'm not big enough to do either, so take it easy. I just want to help."

Her hands were too tiny and inexperienced to make any real difference, and the second she let go, Lockdown stood up and stalked away as skeptical and malcontent as he began, pissed off with everything from the weakness of her hands to the fact the obnoxious teenybopper didn't have the good sense to leave him in peace.

The second time it happened, she learned to dig deep into the knotted muscles and equated hisses with progress, even if Lockdown opened his mouth for the first time in three weeks if just to tell her to fuck off; the fifth time it happened, he fell asleep in the middle of it, limp against the back of the couch in a surprisingly solid sitting position. After a few nudges to test the depth of his slumber, Torque settled beside his heavy-breathing form, rubbing her own sore hands, and simply looked, finally given leave to _see_ the man who shared her apartment but never wanted to live with her, or be looked at or touched.

His skin was white—one big paper blot to anyone looking from afar. The sun or fluorescent made him into a flawless snowman, but upon closer inspection, every inch of him was scarred. There were nicks, scratches, gouges, burns, rough patches, distortions that could have been freckles. Not an inch of him was smooth, even his forehead, where there seemed to be a permanent wrinkle between his brows. Even when he was alone, the scowl never lifted.

After another moment, she let out the breath she had been holding since he let her approach him again. The girl patted his thick thigh lightly enough that she wouldn't wake her hulking housemate, nearly rolling her eyes at the sudden, strangely protective wistfulness she felt looking at that fragmented man with his sore shoulders, peeling sunburns and his mistrust of human touch.

"God help me, I think I'm starting to like you," she murmured to herself, squinting as she got up from the couch to return to her calculus. "Or at least pity you, and that's a start."


	19. Some Days

A/N: HAWHAW. Megatron has Starscream by the balls.

A note: the whole epic good-evil Optimus-Megatron… epicness isn't going on at the moment (which is what made this interaction so frikkin awesome to write). OP is too much of a bebe for it (and Third Prime only), Megs is still an Evil Guy masquerading as an Entrepreneuring God with Questionable Morals ala Xanatos. It'll happen later, or be IMPLIED to happen later—once a certain... switch happens.

Do-do-do-do do-do-DOOOOO.

_Characters: Optimus, Megatron, Starscream_

_Pairings: Squinty Megatron/Starscream, even squintier Megatron/Optimus (if just for Megatron's implicit 'OOH he's pretty, I do so want to keep him… but I can't, so I'll sex him with ma eyez' conduct)_

_Warnings: none_

* * *

Some Days

* * *

It was his fault. He wasn't watching where he was going, nose in the newspaper. He was passing by the bar of his favorite diner that morning, mind elsewhere with a fresh white coffee cup in hand, when he collided with someone.

Optimus cried out stupidly, half from the bump and the sound as the dark, hot liquid crashed against the linoleum, but it was nothing compared to the shriek of the man on the other side of his paper—but then, the Italian boots a foot or two from his own drenched sneakers looked about 500-dollars worth of vocal displeasure, especially now that they were covered in coffee.

He lowered his paper, only to see The Suit. The cut was enough, highly stylized and highly fitted for a lanky frame, but bright pink suits like that _had_ to be double-special-custom-made, and also looked very, very bad with a vaguely Russia-shaped splotch of brown across the stomach.

Optimus bleached. The adrenaline—the 'you have to pay for this' adrenaline that only ever visited officers with low-level income and bad luck—reduced the scalding coffee on his own hand and jeans into a far-off, if ugly, prickling sensation. The other man, tall and skinny and too sharp-looking to be traditionally handsome, was clearly feeling every molecule of it sizzling on his skin, mouth wide open as he stared at the enormous stain all down his front.

"I'm—I'm so sorry," the Prime huffed, reaching over for an ever-present diner napkin dispenser, only to find a cake display box. Egged on by the poisonous disbelief on the other young man's face and the rate at which his pale lip was curling, Optimus fumbled forward, meaning to wipe at the suit with his bare hands or _something_. "Oh god—I'm—let me help you with that—"

"What kind of fool are you?" the Suit hissed suddenly, jerking away from the other man's grip; his dark, exacting eyes blazed indignantly as he slapped at the stain himself. Optimus opened his mouth and closed it several times, blood rising. The added heat doubled his helplessness as the pale young man stared at him murderously, then suddenly seized Optimus' culprit newspaper from his limp, stinging hand and flung it right back into his face in a flurry of stained pages, making Optimus fling his hands up.

"How dare you! You weren't even watching your own feet! I said, what kind of _goddamn fool_ are you?!"

"An innocent, if clumsy one."

The newspaper cloud cleared with a rustle, falling to the ground to soak up the coffee that wasn't already absorbed into the Italian shoes; wincing, Optimus looked up. A broad-shouldered man with swept-back silver hair, sporting a grey silk suit and a crimson tie, literally had the skinny coffee-man by the neck, thick fingers clamped atop the nape. The younger man had gone stiff, teeth bared, hands hooked into claws—Optimus was reminded immediately of a snake caught just below its head.

"Terribly sorry." The older man smiled, absurdly deep voice making Optimus' white bones vibrate. "It seems I forgot to bring his leash today."

The snake dared to give a stung thrash, narrow nostrils flaring. The businessman released him—or dismissed him, as per the flicking motion and the way the other man stumbled to the bar, neck flushed as he glared hatefully over his shoulder—and stepped toward Optimus. His equally expensive shoes were right in the coffee puddle, and Optimus opened his mouth to say so, but the businessman held his eyes so intently that all the clumsy officer could do was stare back.

"Optimus. Third Prime of the DPD," the man nearly purred, embarrassing Optimus with a steady, calculating sweep of his current state: already-graying hair tousled, jeans soaked through with coffee. Only his black shirt and old red Academy jacket remained untouched, but his sneakers were another disaster altogether. The businessman only arched a marvelously thick brow. "An honor. You appear just as dashing out of uniform as you do in the newspaper—and that is more and more often, isn't it?"

"Yes… sir?" Optimus said, if only to fill a pause—that awkward pause that always occurs when somebody knows you but you can't return the favor. The man nodded, unperturbed.

"Very good. With you, as with all officers, I am so very… grateful for what you do for this city."

Maybe it was the pause, maybe it was the buttery, indulgent tone he used, but Optimus' eyes widened. Something simply refused to make sense to him, like he should know this man, and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight; like he didn't fully comprehend what this man could do to him, even as he _did_ nothing more than offer his big hand.

Despite the other's velvet demeanor and his timely half-rescue, Optimus had to swallow and make his own hand move forward to accept the gesture.

"Yes—uh, yes, sir. I, uh—yes. Thank you."

They shook firmly. Startled, Optimus looked down: besides the strong, callused grip of the other man, there was a definite crinkle of paper against his wet palm. The man's calm, waiting smile sent a chill through him for reasons unknown, only doubling when he drew back and found a one-hundred-dollar bill crumpled in his hand.

"I apologize for my… young companion. He is unforgivably tetchy in the morning. Make certain your shoes are properly replaced." When Optimus raised his hand, mouth once more uselessly open, the President raised his own hand, then pressed it warmly against the younger man's fist and held it for a moment. "No, Prime. Consider it my thanks for protecting our fair Detroit. You more than deserve it."

The chill, never completely gone from Optimus' blood, returned with a vengeance when the man slowly, gently swiped his thumb over the top of his hand, grey eyes locked on his handsome face.

"Who knows what would happen, were there no Primes to give our world order?"

Unseen by one man and disregarded by another, the bitter young man was seething just feet behind them, narrow face sharp with impatience and disgust alike. Giving Optimus a deferential nod and releasing his hand, the older businessman began to walk away at a pleasant pace, without honoring his 'companion' with so much as a glance. That was too much for the skinny man in the stained suit, who obviously craved more than a quiet departure. Optimus almost _felt_ the man wind up for a shriek.

"_Mega_—"

"Starscream," the older man rumbled, raising his fingers and snapping once.

It was as though the President had grabbed him by the neck again. Starscream went rigid, claw-like hands whipping into fists. Staring at the older man's back, he seemed to boil beneath his pale skin. He shot one last look of venomous hatred at Optimus, then stalked off after his boss with a tinkle of the diner bell, still clawing at his ruined 'mauve' suit.

Optimus watched the two men go with a lost expression, then sighed deeply. He looked down at the one-hundred-dollar bill in his hand almost mournfully before sliding it into the tip jar at the counter, then kneeled down to sop up the rest of the spilled coffee with his newspaper. Some days.

Just… some days.

* * *

Megatron enjoyed Detroit. Though his coming had been rather… unexpected, and wholly due to a malfunctioning aircraft, he would not live anywhere else. He had carved out his own space in the concrete and the chaos, and that place was home. He half-closed his eyes as he moved down the sidewalk at a Zen-master's pace, listening to the sounds of traffic and the sneakers-on-concrete scrape as people got out of his way.

"Darling boy," he commented, once he heard the slapping of Starscream's sodden shoes behind him. "Such a pity that wide-eyed boy-scout demeanor won't last long. It becomes him."

Starscream merely snarled, ripping off his ruined one-thousand-dollar suit-jacket and throwing it in the nearest public trash-can with a infuriated roar, attracting many a stare from the passerby as he kicked the can for good measure. Speeding up until he came even with his boss, looking quite a state with his ruffled hair and the coffee on his pants when compared to the sleek, silver older man, he yanked at his (also stained) orange tie and groped for his cell-phone, in order to have a fresh suit sent up to his office before he got there.

Or at the door to the building. He wasn't going to be seen like this, and certainly not by any of his siblings. Slipstream would tear him to pieces.

"I don't see why you insist on going to such common establishments when we have unlimited tab with all the five-star restaurants in Detroit _and_ a fully-equipped kitchen _with attending chefs_ in the high-rise, _President_," he hissed through his teeth as he jabbed at his phone and swiped furiously at his dark ruffled hair with his free hand.

"I am fond of the coffee," Megatron responded genially, smiling a touch at both the sunny winter ruckus of the city and the memory of that sculpted mouth and those clear blue eyes. "And, of course, the company."


	20. Initiation

A/N: **A warning**! The updates, they be a-changin'.

School is speeding up for me AND I have some horribly difficult and horribly horrible chapter-subjects coming up, which always slows me down. I'll probably go Russian roulette with updates from now on, Partners-Couple-Moments/fic-wise, and I'll try to keep updating twice a week because it keeps my cheeks rosy (and I like to spoil you), but I can't make any promises. There will be slips.

Also, there's going to be a ittybittybit more emphasis on Odd Moments from now on: because, going by TFA canon, shit is about to go DOWN and I can't honor said shit with anything but my full attention. … Plus, Megatron and Starscream just made the scene, and they're hdf;sfgsbg;ebubgtSUPERSEXOTP AND I MUST WRITE THEM.

Thank you again for reading, you're fantabulous!

_Characters: Starscream, Mama Starscream (AKA The Super Bitch), Megatron_

_Pairings: Future Megatron/Starscream_

_Warnings: Someone call in Child Protection Services, this bitch is crazy? Otherwise, have a tankard on-hand to catch your Anticipation-Drool :D_

* * *

Initiation

* * *

His first day had not yet begun.

The sun had not yet lit the multitude of mirrors that was Detroit, leaving the autumn dawn heavy and purple. Breakfast was foregone, as hunger made one sharp; the most he had been allowed was the scent of coffee before he was shunted into the dark car. It lingered in his mouth, souring alongside the toothpaste.

Silent, they waited for the day—his day—to begin. There would be pomp and circumstance later, for the hopes of two great names working with one another. Mother, always a fan of pomp and circumstance, wanted to draw the President's attention to him, ambitious and young and handsome as he was.

Half the battle was getting the target's eyes, but the target had not yet entered the stately black marble foyer of the high-rise, and so the two Seekers stood to rival the stone around them: elegant and unmoving. Waiting. At some internal signal, perhaps the first flare of light on the horizon, the heiress suddenly broke their still-frame with a click of her heels, drawing towards the wiry young man whose mauve suit was nearly purple in the sleeping building.

"Remember, love," his mother whispered into his ear. The new, silky-insidious endearment made the hair stand on the back of his white neck. "With the proper reward, no cost can be regretted."

She took his hands, as though to gift a last, lingering touch (as mothers do, but not perfumed instructors with cold eyes and he _tensed_) and he stiffened under both the weight and scent of her expectation and the plasticky weightlessness of the packaged condom against his palm.

Security was paramount. It was mother's core lesson. Secure security, and all good things will follow.

She drew back, her dark eyes locked with his wide ones, and smiled only with her mouth. It was a stony order to remain silent—a hand to his own mouth, to quell any useless noise at her cutthroat presumptions. She knew the President's tastes. Her dark red nails pressed into his wrist.

There was no time for shock, simply because she had trained him better than that.

"Be safe."

Take risks, but always clear an avenue to settle gracefully back to a sitting position if they do not succeed—and never forgo basic defense. A thumb-tack can kill if properly placed.

The door opened behind them. Yellow light framed a broad-shouldered man in a grey silk suit, who stepped to the top of the stair-case and looked down on the two handsome figures at the bottom of it, nearly touching noses but radiating cold, functional distance. An intimate scene carved in ice, and not just due to the pair's glacial skin. The older woman looked up over her son's—her offering's—shoulder, sharp eyes immediately at half-mast.

"President."

The man nodded.

"The first of the Seeker brood. I am, I suppose, honored."

His voice rumbled in the glossy room, rich with a certain deep, velvet _knowledge_ as he shared a glance with the Seeker heiress, who pursed her perfect mouth in a smile before nodding and sweeping off in her silk dress, leaving her son with a full clenched fist and a sweat-slick neck. The last of her staccato heels left the marble echoing. He could hardly hear the grunt of the motor as the chauffer took her away, and he found himself straining for more—a noise, any noise—as the masculine silhouette watched him wordlessly from his pedastal, amusement as thick as the shadow he cast over the marble.

The young man forced himself to still. He forced himself to enter this new day with calmness, with all the skill warranted by his position and family name. He hoped only that none of the disbelief, acrid and ugly and shaking his new designer suit from his very skin, was visible as he turned to face his new employer, heart high in his throat. Palm prickling.

He was wrong. Megatron saw every flux, every twitch, every bead of sweat—and smiled in what could only be described as anticipation.

"Welcome, Starscream."

Slowly, stiffly, Starscream bent at the waist, dark hair falling over his mother's eyes.

"The honor is… mine, President."


	21. Teenagers

A/N: Mash-up, sloppy, very Extra-y chapter to explain a lot of shite. Just... kinda sucks. Sorry.

I know that the break-up between Sari and Bee was very sudden, but in writing it from Bee's POV/scope, it kinda needed to be horrifically sudden. Also, this will be the very last time I write human Black-frikkin-arachnia AND I STAKE MY SPARK ON IT DAMMIT. Such a crazy bitch, and not even in the good way.

By the way, this week's **Odd Couple** update is on AFFnet, as is the last **Partners** update. Hope y'all are having a wonderful week thus far~

_Characters: Sari, Bulkhead, Bee, Jet-twins, Wasp, Blackarachnia_

_Pairings: Sari/Bee finito, one-sided Twins/Sari, possible one-sided Bulkhead/Arcee (which I think is stupidly adorable and oh-god-wait-a-few-years flavored) and Blackarachnia/Wasp._

_Warnings: Teenaged angst, hard decisions, twin cuteness, and some creepy, CREEPY-ASS seduction ala the last 'pairing'. She totally gets him addicted to drugs. No lie.  
_

* * *

Teenagers

* * *

"He almost ignores me when we're not alone! He treats me like, I don't know—like a guy friend he can kiss when he feels like it! _At his convenience_! It drives me nuts!"

"Um, Sari?" Bulkhead peeked out from behind his easel with a hesitant expression on his face. When she looked back to him, fists clenched, he ducked his head, mumbling, "You're, um—you're moving again."

Sari looked down at herself, as if seeing for the first time the slightly ridiculous bed-sheet toga she was swaddled in, then swatted her forehead with her free hand (the other was occupied with holding a plastic apple they had spray-painted gold just that morning) and did her best to settle back into the stool. It wasn't quite the generous 3/4-angle Bulkhead had directed her into about half an hour ago, but it was close enough for color-blocking. Sari shook her head very, very shallowly, allowing herself one tortured sigh.

"I'm so sorry Bulkhead. I just haven't had anybody to talk to about it and… you know me."

Bulkhead nodded, then turned determinedly back to his palate and swabbed up a rust he was sure would fit the reds in his friend's dark skin. He did know Sari… and he would have been perfectly content to listen to her ranting about her troubles with Bumblebee if it meant she would stay in one place while doing it. He even felt a little bad asking her to hold back, but the art contest was next week and this was the only break he got from the station and school, and he had to make the best of it. He already had the best model, he thought shyly, now the only problem was doing her justice on canvas, which he was still horribly new to.

Thus chastised, the Indian girl sat still for at least five minutes with her head upturned regally, but all the while her pretty face contracted into a prickly pout, thoughts churning. In the end, she broke the silence so violently that Bulkhead, lost in contemplating the folds of her toga, nearly slashed a line of white all the way across her barely-rendered arm, which didn't much matter as the _real_ arms were already tangled defiantly across her chest.

"I just—it's the same thing every time! I try to dress up for him once in a _millennia_ and spend loads of time thinking about stupid stuff, like what I'm going to wear and where we're gonna go and how he's gonna be _so_ impressed that I curled my hair which I almost _killed_ myself doing—"

"Sari?"

"And he just doesn't even look at me and—and is like, _hey,_ let's go to the arcade! Or the movies! Or even _better_, let's take the only free time _I_ have from schoolwork to go play videogames with Blurr!"

Bulkhead winced as she hunched forward and shook her head violently, completely destroying both the drapery of the toga and the swept-back Greek hair-style they'd patched together with some twine and hair-pins.

"Yeah, 'cos that's _real_ date-material, playing two-player videogames—which equates to me _sitting there like a piece of furniture_--with a guy I don't even like!" Growling, she chucked the Apple of Discord at the wall; her red hair poofed up in all directions as she threw up her hands, fairly yelping: "There! I said it! _I don't like Blurr_!"

"Gee, Sari. Guess it doesn't sound like you're… having much fun with him," Bulkhead said after a second of looking mournfully at the abused prop, which was already flaking. He put down his paintbrush with a sigh, having abandoned the hope of ever adding another brush-stroke with his model in such a state, and blinked down at her. "Have you talked to him about it?"

"_Yes_! Several times! And every time he acts like he gets it, I guess just to shut me up, and then he goes and does the same thing again."

The frustration of trying to pound _anything_ through Bee's thick skull was evident in her expression and clenched fists, much less subtle things like paying attention to your girlfriend when she seemed perfectly fine a day ago, playing videogames alone with _you_. He just didn't take _cues_, or understand girls as a whole… and apparently he didn't care enough to change his tune.

"And the sad thing is, I think it's just the way that he is! He just doesn't _think_ about stuff, and he definitely doesn't think about me until I'm right in front of him: then it's like _Oh. Dur_. I have a _girlfriend_."

"You guys have a good time together, most, um, most times. I've seen you. But… maybe you guys aren't… y'know." Bulkhead shrugged with some difficulty. "Supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend."

Sari crumpled, like it wasn't the first time she'd heard it—be it in her own head or from someone else's mouth. She took a deep breath, drawing her skinny brown legs onto the stool and wrapping her arms around them.

"It's just… I don't even feel pretty around him, you know? I don't even feel like a girl most of the time. I thought I was okay with that, but… "

"But… you're so pretty, Sari. You're real pretty."

She shook her head like she didn't believe it, and Bulkhead's face fell. No more than a second later, however, his friend looked up at him with a teasing smile.

"Prettier than Arcee?"

Her chuckle turned into a full laugh when Bulkhead turned a mortified shade of rose and ducked down to busy himself with his canvas in whatever way would let him avoid her eyes. He muttered something about both of them being pretty in different ways—and he was right, one was bright and bandy and spunky and the other was pastel and sweet with thick lashes—and cleared his throat until he could find some more words for her.

He wanted Bee to be happy, and he wanted Sari to be happy. But he knew Bee—and he knew that Bee would never really be happy if he was away from Sari. At least, not for a long time. But if Sari wasn't happy in the first place…

Bulkhead frowned deeply, lost in trying to weigh out cost and gain with hearts and heads. If it was this difficult for him, he could hardly imagine how difficult it was for Sari, tied in so closely to his friend. He'd never had a girlfriend. He wouldn't know, but it sounded tough.

"Still, I mean… you can still be friends, right?" he said at last, round face anxious. "Because I really don't… you know, I don't want you to stop coming around just 'cos you're not dating Bee."

"I know." She pressed her face in between her knees, sad: because, somewhere, she had already made up her mind. "Whatever happens, I don't think I'll be around for a while. Bee won't want me here."

She was, of course, nothing but right.

* * *

Sari sighed and rolled over on her bed for the millionth time, freeing her face from the pillows she was half-suffocating in. Even when she couldn't _breathe_, she couldn't shake Bee from her mind: whether it was the grin he gave her when she got them tickets to their favorite band-show or the look on his face when he snatched his backpack from the back of her car for the last time and ran into the Project, slamming the huge door after him. She had wanted to chase after him so badly, but instead she just drove on.

It was hard to pinpoint the moment she realized that she was dating her best friend—and said best friend wasn't mature enough for her. It was the Sumdac heir's first time dating anyone in her entire cloistered existence, so the flutters of a first official seventeen-year-old romance—of dates and held hands, no matter with whom—overrode the logic that said she couldn't really rely on Bee on a daily basis. Yes, he had some amazing moments. Yes, she was sure that he still had feelings for her and what made it hard was that she returned those feelings, but she wouldn't ignore her gut feeling and end up hating him for the world. She couldn't survive on those little flashes of _considerate male_ and keep abiding his thoughtlessness day-to-day.

It wasn't easy. She'd held her breath for days about it. He acted like it was out of the blue, which was the painful part—and the part that proved this was probably the right thing to do. If he hadn't noticed that she'd been drawing away, or wanting to talk to him about serious stuff, and he was completely clueless on why she wanted to break up with him? They weren't on the same page.

Growling, Sari heaved herself from her bed and started one of her many tower wanderings, if just to quit staring at her four-poster top. She trudged through hallways and stepped into waiting elevators, giving clustered employees a quick smile. They were used to seeing her around. She ended up on the fourth floor after a brief game of Sumdac Chutes and Ladders, staring at the machines churning beyond the glass of the observation deck without really seeing them.

Suddenly, she groaned again and smacked the wall, not even making a clang. She just felt that way: helpless. Helpless even to apologize to Bee, to make him forgive her so they could be friends again. She missed him already. She was so sure it could work, but Bee's reaction killed any hope she had. He almost went into shock, and that alone made her want to take it all back.

She hadn't been over to hang out at the Project in at least two weeks, and with that went any kind of social interaction. She'd been trapped at the Tower for thirteen straight days, which had done _wonders_ for the whole getting-her-mind-off-of-breaking-her-friend's-heart thing. She couldn't even stop by after school to see the girls she was sort-of friends with, because she couldn't stand the thought of Bee seeing her and storming off.

She just had to… stay out of sight until he decided she wasn't a heartless she-monster. But then, how would he ever decide that if she wasn't allowed to talk to him? If he didn't _allow_ her to talk to him…

"_Dobryj dyen'_! Sari Sumdac!"

Startled, Sari looked up from the orderly ruckus one floor down; two tall boys were galumphing toward her, waving manically as though she weren't just a few meters away. Jetfire and Jetstorm screeched to a stop in front of her, grinning their identical grins.

"Sari Sumdac, it is being you!"

"Sari Sumdac, are you to be taking tour too?" Jetstorm asked, nearly stamping his feet in glee. The two had obviously escaped from a guided tour of Sumdac industries and were more than excited to see a familiar face, much less one belonging to so tall and exotic a girl.

"A tour of her own company! Brother, you are being truly stupid," Jetfire scoffed. He raised a fist and bopped his twin on the head, earning himself a Russian curse-word and a dirty glare. Sari could only offer a listless half-smile, fighting the urge to look down at her feet or run back up to her room. She took a deep breath.

"No, guys, I—I kinda live here."

"You are living here?" Jetfire repeated incredulously, gesturing to the glassed-off research lab. "Funny! You are sleeping underneath the computers, _da_?"

Sari shook her head, about to say that there was a _house_ upstairs with curtains and carpet, but Jetstorm laughed and waggled his finger.

"You and the Boomblebee, you are having very strange living spaces!"

Sari couldn't help it: her face fell. She looked away, rubbing at her scruffy pigtails.

"Yeah. I… guess we are."

She was expecting more blabber, or maybe an awkward exit because maybe she _didn't_ want to see people right now, so Sari jumped when Jetstorm reached forward and took her free hand in his, expression worried.

"Sari Sumdac… you are not feeling nice?"

"I, uh. My boyf—Bee. I broke up with him," Sari stuttered after a moment, voice tight. Both of the twins looked at her in confusion—like breaking up with a boyfriend of five months wasn't something you had to deal with in Soviet Russia—then Jetfire tilted his head.

"And you are thinking you made a mistake?"

"No," Sari answered, knowing it was true. She shook her head sadly, drawing away to pick at the hem of her dress. "Maybe that's what was hard about it. It had to happen."

The two brothers looked at her for a moment, then muttered conspiratorially between themselves in Russian that was far too fast and soft for her to understand. Coming to some kind of conclusion, both straightened.

"Our host parents are to be taking us to something that is called a carnival. Mayhaps you are liking to come?" Jetfire asked her while his twin readjusted his visor almost nervously behind him. The ginger twin took her hand this time, bending down to meet her eyes. "You can be practicizing your Russian with us and it will be very fun."

"Yes, but you will have to be holding both of our hands and not just one!" Jetstorm put in before Sari could speak, suddenly stepping forward to steal her other hand.

"And sitting in the middle of the car!" Jetfire added, nodding at his twin as though all of this were regular fare.

"And riding rides with both."

"And we will be winning you funny little _medved_ toys!"

Any shy feeling of being flattered puttered out and died: Sari looked at them, bewildered, as they wrapped an arm around each other.

"We are sharing everything!" they chorused by way of explanation. Even, apparently, girls.

Struck by the fact she was going to be divided like a candy-bar between two fussing brothers, Sari suddenly broke into ridiculous peals of laughter. It felt good after being reduced to muted sighs for so long, and it cleaned out something inside of her. When she quieted, wiping tears from her eyes, Jetfire and Jetstorm were still grinning at her expectantly.

Still, she shook her head. She knew Bee was going to the carnival, and he would be heartbroken to see her with two boys that he knew liked her. She couldn't risk it, because the one thing she wanted more than anything was to be back with him, laughing about zombies and playing video-games like nothing had happened.

"No thanks, guys. I don't think I want to go anywhere right now. Have fun, though."

She gave a sad smile and their faces fell in perfect tandem, looking at her with true concern—the kind she didn't know they had the concentration to sit still for. Sari shrugged and began to walk away, trailing one hand along the metal wall.

"I'm still getting over him."

* * *

"Hey, Bumbler."

Bee glanced towards the voice instinctively, then went back to his stooped position, eyes locked on the concrete of the side-walk. Wasp.

His stride doubled and he hitched his ratty backpack further up, fingers already white on his straps. The bus-stop was half a mile away; Wasp would walk five miles barefoot just to torture him. He wasn't getting out of this.

"How's it going, Bumblebee?"

The other boy's sharp tone made something drop in Bee's gut. Wasp already knew how it was going. Bumblebee tensed, ears burning; he heard Wasp slide off of the school picnic bench he'd been lounging on, taking his cigarette-stub from his mouth.

"Hear Sumdac kicked your ass to the curb."

Bee nearly stumbled. Just the sound of her name made him go numb; made him remember why he was trudging to the bus-stop instead of hopping into a corvetta-duex and stealing a kiss. He walked a little faster, yellow tennis-shoes scraping louder and louder to drown out his heart-beat.

"She get tired of loaning you lunch money?"

The younger boy hissed something through his teeth, cheeks red. Dark, skinny and just as short as he was, Wasp suddenly entered his periphery, making him flinch and turn away like he'd been stung. Not so close, not so _close_.

"What was that, reject?"

"Shut up, Wasp," Bee breathed into his collar. A desperate heat rose in his neck, in direct rebellion to the cold January air.

"You should be happy, man! Someone pathetic as you never even had a chance with her: you with a fuckin' Sumdac? Now you've got a reputation." Wasp blew out and a blast of cigarette smoke hit Bee in the face, making him duck away and cough. "A loser whose luck ran out."

Rage clouding his sore head, a product of the hot acrid smoke and the cold of Sari's voice telling him _I don't think this is working_, Bee lost it.

He sucked in a deep breath and did what he'd always wanted to whenever Wasp set after him and he skittered off again and again: he turned and dug his hand into Wasp's green jacket, jerking the other boy close. Wasp immediately stiffened, grabbing the front of the blond's hoodie and glaring into his baby face. Five years of venomous tension and locker-slams crackled between the two, reflected by the sheer whiteness of their knuckles. For a moment, they only stared at each other.

"You wanna start somethin', Bumbler?" Wasp hissed at length, yanking tightly on Bee's hoodie in a way that dug into his neck and made him want to snap and kill him, leave him bloody for thinking he was so useless, such a loser, when Sari obviously couldn't find a reason to keep him around anyways and it was just a matter of time--

"Boomblebee! Be waiting!"

Both boys turned, hands still locked tightly in each other's clothes, when someone shouted far down the sidewalk. It was the two Russians, long strides eating up the side-walk as they waved their arms like windmills. Each had their backpacks swinging helter-skelter from their narrow shoulders, grinning sunnily.

"We are walking to the bus, as well! We are walking with you, _da_?"

When Bee looked back, adrenaline chilled his rough rage. Wasp was staring, dark eyes glittering, just _waiting_ for the skinny boy to try and sock him. It didn't matter to him if there were witnesses to Bee's beating, because it _would_ be his beating. He'd never thrown a punch before unless he had a controller in his hands, and that helplessness spread like a cold bucket of ice to his stomach.

Inwardly, Bee's spine crumpled. He didn't want to fight. He just wanted to be left alone, to feel useless and pathetic without having anyone breathing down his neck. Sari had left him. As far as he was concerned, his life was over. No one would date him now, and he didn't want anyone other than Sari.

Finally, the twins drew close enough that their slapping sneakers made him flinch. Suddenly, Bee growled and shoved Wasp away, ripping his own hoodie free and stumbling down the sidewalk.

"God, just get away! All of you!"

Jetfire and Jetstorm stopped and blinked at the little yellow boy dashing down the sidewalk, scruffy blond head tucked low. Only Jetstorm looked down in time to catch the scathing look Wasp sent the two of them before stalking off, then he tugged at his twin's sleeve.

"Come, brother. Boomblebee is being very far ahead."

"I am thinking we were told to go away," Jetfire reminded him, stopping Jetstorm in his tracks with a similar grip. The dark-haired boy frowned.

"And _I _am thinking that the Boomblebee is needing friends because he is sad."

"Okay," Jetfire huffed after a moment of squinting at his far more considerate brother. He sighed and shrugged his backpack back into place, expression dubious. "So long as this is not making Ms. Sumdac off-limits after she is finished with the getting-over of him."

"Brother!"

It was Jetstorm's turn to swat and he didn't waste the opportunity. The crack could be heard across the school-yard, as could his twin's answering curse. Jetfire could be a dick sometimes, but Jetstorm loved him anyways. He found more reasons to have faith in his rougher half when the skinny redhead sat next to Bumblebee on the bus and told him dirty Russian jokes until the small boy smiled into his wet hoodie-sleeve.

They would be sad to go home.

* * *

By the time Bumblebee had managed a watery smile, Wasp had long headed the other way, towards his house.

He cut through the playground of the nearby elementary school, vaulting over the low fence just for the satisfaction of his feet hitting the ground. He strolled through, kicking sand in the jungle-gym pits. He had just coaxed his MP3 player into relinquishing just one song—it was an antique yes, but it worked—when he looked up from the cracked screen to see a tangled black form on the metal wheel-thing that spun. He forgot the name of it. It was a woman, half-dressed in fishnets and ratty black clothing.

Wasp popped the earbuds free and scowled at her. She was creaking to and fro on the playtoy with little pushes of her high-heeled boot and humming to herself. 'The itsy bitsy spider'.

This was _his_ way home. What the hell would a crazy chick be doing in a playground?

The young man snorted to himself, pushing at the MP3 player that chose that moment to fritz out. He shoved it back into his backpack and stalked toward, seeing only fish-netted legs from the corner of his eye.

"Hello."

Her gravelly voice stopped him, but only for a second. Her tattered black skirt was awfully high. He jostled his backpack and tried to move on.

"That little boy you were teasing… what is his name?"

Wasp's mouth popped open. How could she—he looked over. Yes, the front of the school was fully visible from the playground, but so distant, it would be difficult to read even gestures… He glared suspiciously at her.

"Why do you wanna know?" Wasp demanded snidely, already impatient that he wasn't just moving on—that she had caught him somehow and he had to answer.

"Curious," she said with a shrug, giving a strong push that had her clicking to the right, hinges squeak-squeak-squeaking. Wasp stared at her in disgust.

"Freak," he muttered, definitely loud enough for her to hear. She snatched his hand when he moved past her, looking up from her splayed position—dyed black hair fanned around her head like some sort of black papal hood, blonde roots showing through—with a pleading expression.

"Oh, please don't go. It's nearly dark." Her tone—a scratchy, indulgent purr—nearly made his ears go red. It was broad daylight outside. Before he could react, throw off her hand, it was gone with a slither of skin against skin. "It's… Bumblebee, isn't it?"

"Were you…" Wasp grimaced, and shook his hand as though it prickled, stung or poisoned by her black nails. Her skin had been cold, really cold. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Lying. Waiting," she murmured hazily, drawing her fingers along the rust-spotted bars of the playtoy. "Tell me, why were you teasing him?"

"His girlfriend dumped him," he said at length, voice hard. "We all knew she would."

She smiled, as if that was the way it should be. Because the girl was too good for him and she knew it. She didn't allow her heart to be broken by some stupid boy, and thus 'Bumblebee' got what he deserved. If only his cousin's plight were so concise, so simple. Blackarachnia sighed.

"You are a very handsome boy."

Wasp gulped, because, suddenly, the freak wasn't a pair of strangely spread, dislocated legs any longer. She sat up and became a woman.

Stunned by her criss-crossed legs and full breasts, Wasp felt his mouth go dry. To even have her looking at him with her dark eyes, radiating that smoky, predatory something that bony sweater-clad high-school girls couldn't have—he couldn't look away. She knew her every curve. Any unease he felt didn't exactly disappear but became little more than a quivering undertone to the feeling she provoked in him.

"Aren't so bad yourself," he grunted, throat tight. Head tilting, she smiled at him like he had ceased to buzz and wiggle on her web; his gut flopped. The prickly spider necklace peeked out from between the white of her breasts.

"Come here."

He looked around to see if there was anyone watching, then approached her with slow steps, conscious of every crunch of grass underneath his new sneakers. When he got close enough, she motioned him closer with a black-nailed finger. Dumbly, he waded the last few inches of grass towards the insane woman and those same nails scraped along his hairless chin, making him make a dumb humming noise—an expression of his flat-lining brainwaves. She cupped his chin and leaned close, perfume flooding the air between them, and he lost any will to see sense.

"I sit here because I get lonely," she whispered in his ear, black lips pursed in a secretive smile Wasp never saw. "Would you be willing to… keep a lady company?"

Crazy or no, she was still the sexiest thing he had ever seen.


	22. Stranded

A/N: This is done TOTALLY blind and per request, reading a few fics, but I hope I got their general dynamics right. Sorta. Mirage is a snob, but not the cultured/apathetic misunderstood loser he (apparently) is in G1. Otherwise, B'AWWWWW Calhoun messes everything up. (Don't worry, they marry each other three years from now and adopt a little baby girl, which Mirage sends to language school because he doesn't want her to end with Hound's insufferable drawl).

Also, **clarion call to my lovely readers**, here. I need ideas regarding OM Megatron and Starscream. I'm dying to explore their relationship, but most of the ideas I come up with are being shipped STRAIGHT to AFFnet (because Megatron doesn't believe in pay-suspension for punishing men like Starscream guhhhh). While this is fun for those who can go there, I want more scenes in a T setting but I'm horribly unimaginative when it comes to business-goings-ons. And, uh, I'm really busy right now.

Leave me a prompt, leave me an idea! Everyone needs more Megatron and Starscream!

_Characters: Hound, Mirage_

_Pairings: HoundxMirage_

_Warnings: Language_

* * *

Stranded

* * *

Hound looked up when he heard the noise.

It was a damned big one—a kind of guttural chug—and followed by a long screech. He tipped his holey hat up and looked behind him, thick brows high. On the road behind his favorite tree, a pretty car (a white and blue slicker resembling an F-1 racer, except Hound had no mind to know that: he only knew it wasn't a blocky dirt-smeared pick-up and that was enough of a treat for the eye) was pushed half-way off the paved road that ran alongside the edge of Calhoun. Curious, the young man turned, then flinched as the car jerked with another horrible noise and thick grey-blue smoke started gushing out of the hood. The air was suddenly noisy with the sound of a dying, whining motor, scaring all the birds off. He heard the slam of a car door and something that might have been a curse.

A few minutes later he was moseying towards the break-down, feet still wet from the creek as he padded through the scratchy grass. The driver was almost glowing, for all the white he was wearing in the cloud of smoke, and Hound could hear him grunting as he tried to pry the hood open but ended up burning his fingers.

The boy was wearing white slacks and a sweater-vest, all meticulously cuffed and tailored. Hanging back for a second, the other young man felt strangely embarrassed about his turned up, ratted jeans and his bare feet. Maybe it was just looking at the fine way he was dressed, but Hound felt a little less than presentable, even though he'd never worn anything fancier in his life. He was knocked out of his head by the boy looking around and spotting him, slamming once more on the hot hood before turning to him with his fists clenched.

"Don't just stand there, you goddamned hick! Help me!" he snapped, cheeks and nose red, the front of his white sweatervest smeared with ash.

Like a whip had been cracked (or maybe his obliging nature cracked its own whip), Hound hot-footed it to the car, quickly finding the fancy catch to the hood and pushing it up. After the smoke cleared, he took a good long look at the engine like he understood every bit of those complex little levers and wires, when really he was clueless beyond the smoke. Smoke was bad. That was enough for now: the mechanic would figure out the rest.

Hound pulled back with a cough, waving the scent of burning wiring out of his face. The city boy was glaring at him, handprints all down his sweater-vest.

"It's… gonna take a while ta fix," Hound mumbled, half-wincing under the other's immediate grimace. "I mean, judgin' from the looks ovvit. I dunno much about cars, but you look pretty jacked up here."

The hick's slight drawl seemed to try the other boy's patience even more than his smoking car, because he gave a wordless roar of rage and stomped off into a nearby standing of trees, leaving Hound scratching his head and staring after him.

* * *

"I'm sorry I called you that," Mirage said softly as they leaned against a rock, finally breaking the starry quiet between them.

It was dark, after spending the majority of the day pushing the beautiful if godforsaken car up to their only mechanic shop and haggling with the guy over the price, then finding a place for 'Mirage' to stay while it was completed. Hound looked over sleepily, sorting through the days events for what the other boy meant. Like a turned penny, he finally found it, right at the beginning. What, Mirage was apologizing for shouting at him—calling him a hick?

"No 'ffense taken. Been called worse." He shrugged and looked up, watching the stars through the breaks in the trees and tonguing the bit of chewing grass to the other side of his mouth. He chomped down for more of that fresh taste. "So, why are you out here? Calhoun's a long way from Florida."

Mirage sighed so intensely that Hound almost took it back for sake of preserving accord, but the pale-haired city boy started speaking before he had a chance to do so.

"I was supposed to meet my friends—well, the kids of my dad's company partners—at Colorado for some skiing, but… here I am." He sighed, flicking his cigarette away into the water. Hound frowned deeply at it; he only allowed it to get a few feet down the stream before he hopped up onto his still-bare feet and plucked it from the water, tucking it into his jean pockets.

"Kills fish," he said by way of explanation, then settled back with a blameless look of curiosity. "You could've flown. That's what rich kids do, right?"

"Well, yes, but… I don't know. I was trying to squirm out of it. Maybe I wanted this to happen. Maybe I booby-trapped my car in my sleep, I don't _know_." he sighed, head in his hands. "All I know is that I didn't want to end up _here_. What do you have here, a population of one-hundred? You have to inbreed every other generation, right?"

"Hey, Calhoun ain't so bad. I've survived this long. You'll make it a few days." Hound shrugged again--then, with a bit of hope, but still demure, "I could even take you fishin', if you wanted. Just for somethin' to do, I mean. You got a few days, after all—don't wanna spend all that time coolin' yer heels."

Mirage nodded and made a soft noise. The two sat back in comfortable silence, warm night filling the forest with the sound of cicadas and curious green rustlings. Tiny forest animals wandering around for snacks. The day had been long, but Hound had been beside him every step of the way. A kind of... civility he hadn't experienced in quite a while. Country kindness. Mirage looked over at the older boy a few times, but always returned his eyes to the glisten of the stream in front of them, watching the stars flicker on the surface.

"You're very…" Mirage began suddenly, then hesitated, eyes elsewhere. Wondering how far he could go, what words he could use.

"What?" Hound asked, looking over at him like he truly had no clue.

"Kind. You're very kind." Mirage smiled at the other boy in the dark, soaking in his sculpted face, sun-browned and tickled at the chin and cheeks with three-day honey fuzz. "And very handsome."

Hound's mouth opened, then shut. That wasn't normal fare from a boy. Maybe city kids did things differently, though, so he just shut up about it, feeling oddly red in the face as the word came back into his head. Handsome.

Mirage was that word, too, he guessed. Handsome. Especially the way his pale hair fell over his eyes. Nobody in town had hair like that, especially looking that clean. He was about to think about the kid's nice shoes, and how they looked like he drove them straight out of the shop, when Mirage leant over, very slowly, and kissed him on the cheek.

Then, when Hound didn't really do anything about it--just kept looking forward and gave a shivering exhalation when there was a soft-small pop and the butterfly pressure went away--Mirage turned the other boy's chin and gave him a kiss.

It was mouth to mouth. It was a real kiss and the softest kiss anybody'd ever dreamed of. But when the other's hand moved to his chest and Hound suddenly realized that those soft lips belong to a _boy_, he suddenly jerked away, ice flooding underneath his warm skin and turning it to crackling lizard pelt with a hiss. Mirage's eyes were wide in the dark, that betraying hand pushed to his own chest.

"Are you--? Did I assume too much?"

"The hell kind'a presumption would lead you to--to do that?" Hound scrambled up and away from the handsome young man on the ground, heart beating so fast he couldn't quite breathe. But he could glare, and raise his voice, and put all the boiling spunk into it, spewed straight from his roiling stomach. "Well? You think I'm a fuckin' faggot or something?"

The word shocked Mirage, as did the way it was spat at him: the other boy could see it make a circle through his blue blood, searing everything on the way. It cut his thoughts in half, made politically-correct pleasantries impossible; it had that much raw, hateful force, because there was no other word. This was the reality here.

"Are you?" Mirage blurted, eyes wide and somewhat fearful.

"'Course I ain't. Are you?" he demanded viciously, hands balling into fists. They shook—not from rage, but Mirage wasn't one to know that. The boy looked away, suddenly seeming to grow smaller for his fear and guilt.

"No. I'm not," Mirage said softly, mint-green eyes sad. He looked back to the creek and tossed in his last stone as Hound snorted in disgust and fought his way through the bush and out of the forest, leaving him stranded in the dark with no way home.

"I suppose I'm not."


	23. To Conquer

A/N: Aha, the long-awaited Megatron/Starscream nonsense!

A word about the Seeker children. It goes this way, oldest to youngest: Slipstream, Sunstorm, Starscream-Thundercracker-Skywarp (triplets HAHA you'd think I pay attention to all the G1 lore or something), and Dirge (duhduhdun-dundunnnnRamjetindisguiseeeeeeee).

There will be more, and it will be more satisfying than this. Promise.

Sorry about my sabbatical, kids. I hope it's over, too. :[

_Characters: Megatron, Starscream, brief Thundercracker and Skywarp_

_Pairings: Megatron/Starscream_

_Notes: (delicious) unprofessional behavior? Megatron molests interns on a daily basis D: But since he's Megatron/Sean Connery it's okay. Also, this is REALLY early in their relationship, before Megs has raised his favorite traitor to second-in-command. _

_Also, I'll get to it later, but Megatron used to be a cage-fighter. Just sayin'._

* * *

To Conquer

* * *

Megatron, esteemed President of D-Con industries, was both a talented and a balanced man. He had goals; he achieved them. He had needs; he met them.

Sex was not, nor had ever been, one of his needs.

It was not to say that he had no _use_ for it, or no capacity for the occasional distraction--because he was often to be found with a soft-skinned twenty-something boy pretending to sleep in his silk sheets while he rose for a cleansing shower--but it often annoyed him to see how quickly inferiors resorted to such sideways favors instead of hard, intelligent work. It bought them no favors in return: indeed, they were usually demoted after demonstrating their proclivity for seeking short-cuts in other arenas.

In the older man's line of business, there were no short-cuts. Those who could earn their pay behind desks and on the stock-floors had no need for anything in their mouths but food and drink. Nevertheless, he took what was laid out in front of him when the whimsy struck him, perhaps if only to eliminate weak links from his chain before they had a chance to ruin themselves under his own name.

Then there was the proverbial dish he drew towards at a curious pace. The first Seeker child, tall and brittle and gifted with a mouth crafted for sneering. He would say handsome, but that which burns on the tongue is not handsome—and it became less so when all Megatron could hope for was a poor imitation of a certain wild-cat role-model who shared his calculating eyes.

Still, the President approached the boy with a certain sense of caution. For all her predictable routes, or perhaps because of her predictable routes, the heiress was still a force to be reckoned with, clever and ruthless, striking at knees and ankles and trust-accounts. It all came down to how much her favorite son had inherited from her and how much he was willing to do with both his mother's lessons and reputation.

The world had not yet run out of pleasant surprises, however.

As he drew closer to this new object, it became more appealing. The sharpness of Starscream' snide nose became more attractive with proximity, in a twisted way, in the same fashion as his brutality in business did. He _became_ handsome, while acting anything but. Admittedly, his triplets shared the same features, but their disparate personalities warped them into something bland—the President had no interest in pompous Thundercracker and Skywarp the meek, even after he hired them with a mockingly deferential nod to the heiress.

The woman did not miss the amused quirk of his mouth, but also had no care for his amusement (no matter where he took it from, be it one of her brood or otherwise) as long as it meant her successors were joined to his good name. Practical. Brutal, but practical.

Soon, the whole family flocked to him. They were all attractive, if one cared particularly for the sharp, pale, slender specimen of bickering fool, but Starscream—Starscream the First--was a violently flawed chameleon. He was capable commander of resources, an ingenious strategist, a coward and a fawning wretch in turns, but every act was concluded by a devious smile cast just a second too soon as he turned to leave the business hall.

Megatron was content to watch for a month or three, not wishing to disappoint himself with a chase and a curiosity sullied too soon. Starscream kneeled at his feet, and the greed in his thin face alone was captivating. Nonetheless, it was only a matter of time before his mind, already bored of this cycle, wanted to get on with things. When he reached for this 'dish' before him, however, Megatron's hand met with the hardest, heaviest glass known to man.

Starscream spurned him.

Then, when he offered again (a mere tilt of his head and an outstretched hand, always subtle but never cryptic), Starscream refused again; _emphatically_ though wordlessly, the one boy with more ambition than brains scornfully refused a chance to rise, and Megatron simply refused to believe it was through an aversion to unprofessional means.

More so, it wasn't simply curiosity for the prudish stance of a greedy whoreson. Megatron had never been forced to fight for anything in that area of his life. People offered; he took. It was that watery instant gratification, the President learned as he experimentally ran his hand over that thick glass day by day, half-smile growing as he was _rewarded_ with an hidden sneer or a shudder every time, that had sapped the enjoyment from the act.

He had always been a conqueror, and while he may have been interested in the tall, arrogant boy beforehand, this sticky paradox made Starscream impossible to stop watching—and how quickly he would have gouged out his own eyes, if he had known that very boy would be the end of him.

* * *

Megatron smiled to himself, swirling his wine-glass in his callused palm as he looked at the city of Detroit, all glittering high-rises and cold fresh air. All attainable, with the correct price, warm bodies beyond the windows included. Inside his humble building, however… his dry smile widened.

He should have tried pursuit of the un-pursuable earlier. It was... invigorating. Made one's mind twist in different directions.

"--gone too far this time!"

"Screamer—"

"Don't _call me that_! He's gone too fucking far and I'm not going to sit around—letting him to whatever he wan—let _go_, you fool—_Skywarp_--"

He heard the shrill voices as if from far away, but he could make out the words easily enough. They, the inseparable triad, clattered up the hallway towards him, the occasional thump resulting as one (Skywarp, doubtlessly) was shunted up against a wall by his personal antagonist's needle-like elbows.

"Starscream! _Starscream_, he's—he's the boss, he _can_ do whatever he wants! That's what th-that _means_, he's—_ow_--the—S-starscream, wait!"

Behind his back, there was the twitter of an access-code and a boom as his office doors were probably kicked open. Megatron heard a click and a slam—the mahogany double-doors banging off the wall—and took another sip of his wine. He heard Starscream stifle himself, then swallow.

"Who do you think you are?"

Oh, that malevolent hiss, super-saturated with every slight ever dealt to the boy. Starscream's self-absorbed melodrama never ceased to amuse. His triplets didn't bother to bang on the door. Smart children.

"The President of this company," Megatron answered calmly, eyes still locked on the glittering high-rises beyond his bullet-proof windows. Starscream huffed like a stuck bull.

"Then you must know who I am, _President_—"

"And where you stand in that capacity, Starscream, is thoroughly underneath me. Whichever way you manage to twist it, I have the right."

Ultimate statements never failed to ring so satisfactorily. That stole the fiery breath from his young associate, but only for a moment. Starscream recovered with a snarl, stalking across the hardwood floors to the front of his President's immaculate desk, click-click-clicking away with those ridiculous designer _heels_ of his.

Those Seekers and their footwear. A stranger fashion statement there never was.

"We are equals in this! I had just as much of a hand founding this deal as you—"

"If you had a hand in, it was poised at the doorway to be jerked out at the slightest troubling of the waters," Megatron corrected the other man as he turned from Detroit and faced his richly colored office with a bored expression and another, equally disenchanted swirl of his wineglass.

Though the boy had only been in his service less than a year, the older man was well accustomed to these outbursts: namely, when Starscream broke from his eternally sycophantic farce to bawl at a direct removal of authority. His ascent through D-Con's ranks had been nearly super-sonic, true, but that glass ceiling had a troubling habit of dropping on his head at the most inopportune of times. This was routine by now, even if routine had never before brought him such a mixture of frustration and skewed pleasure as the President waited, day by day, uproar by uproar, to see how far Starscream was willing to push it.

Or, on the more interesting days, how far the boy stumbled in a blind rage before his fury withered into cringing pleas to simply forget his insolence. Though he kept his silence when he saw fit, Megatron never forgot. Every incident was a… data-gathering of sorts. A study of a creature as fickle as he was dangerous, and as dangerous as he was promising. Enticing.

The President moved behind his wide desk and set down his wineglass, not honoring the rigid young man in front of him with so much as a glance.

"As the senior member of this transaction, I did not think it amiss to restrict your authority until further notice, seeing as we are in such a delicate professional situation."

Megatron's steady, urbane rumble, much less his arrogant liberties, obviously never failed to turn the young Seeker's blood to steam.

"Of course you had your reasons, but how dare you go about it this way! Did you expect me to find out about this in front of everyone—the last one informed of my own suspension?!" White with rage, Starscream slammed both hands on his leader's desk, shrieking, "You humiliated me!"

"I meant no insult," the older man purred with a superior tilt of his mouth, reaching for the stack of reports Shockwave had left for him. His simple lack of eye-contact drove Starscream's anger to atmospheric levels and only increased to a death-wave of heat when the older man began perusing the data in his hands. "You are worthwhile in your own right, if known for being a bit… rash. Not the correct type for smiling and shaking hands with Sumdac Corporation. You will excuse me if I acted as would benefit the company as a whole, Starscream, as I truly have no time for petty personal affronts. I assumed you would understand this by now."

He turned away from Starscream's open mouth, stooping to get another file from his desk drawer. He heard the young man's teeth click shut, then another tap of his precious boots.

"Don't you turn your back on me!"

"And why-ever not? It will give you a more opportune chance to stab me," Megatron suggested lightly, never pausing as he carded through the manilla folders and retrieved the fat one he needed. He reached into his suit pocket and drew out a pair of square reading glasses, placing them on his nose so the figures on the grid would come into focus; he held the folder at arms length, frowning only slightly. "Use the knife in your boot, if you please. My letter opener is in need of sharpening and I do want it to be clean."

He risked a glance into his periphery; the boy was a satisfactory shade of ugly cream, cold blood rising just to splotch his nonexistent cheeks. He at least had the grace to know when someone had caught him by the hair, avaricious, ambitious little whelp that he was. Megatron had never seen the knife, but he knew.

"I have done nothing but follow your orders! You had no _reason_," Starscream insisted, of course attempting to steer the exchange away from his treachery. Megatron shook his head, feeling his patience draw to an end. Repetition served no purpose.

"I do not need a reason if my intuition serves me best at that point."

Brittle restraint snapping as it always did, Starscream went off. He ranted and railed for a few minutes, so caught up in his fervor that he failed to notice—or noticed all too acutely—that his superior and lord was paying no attention to him. Megatron simply settled into his beautiful leather chair to weather the tantrum with his report in hand, his second-to-be's indignant squawking nothing more than background noise.

But of course, a man could only take so much insolence, and Starscream's lovely voice did wear on the nerves to rival an acid-laced cheese-grater. Like a screaming hyena pacing in front of a dark lions den, Starscream finally ventured too close to the desk and the man behind it.

"—you, demoting me at the toss of a hat like I'm—"

Megatron was on his feet in a moment. He yanked the skinny man in front of him, perfectly aware of the sharp knock on the hip (and the satisfying yelp) that he endured from the corner of the mahogany desk. Before Starscream had a chance to react, Megatron pinned him to the wood behind him with a fighter's stone grip, grabbing onto his tie and pulling so his face was inches from his inferior's.

"Like you are what? A whining, conniving child? Pleading for more than you are worth and throwing tantrums when you are not placated?"

His dark tone challenged Starscream to utter a single word; the bite of the desk in his angular hips was enough to keep him attentive as Megatron glared at him, noble face stormy and edged with disgust as he looked at the (suddenly cringing, expertly wretched) young man in front of him.

"Forgive me my well-worn platitudes, but you do not know the meaning of success, Starscream. You don't know what it is to fight for it, rather than have it injected into blood at birth. I didn't intend to come to this pit. I practically crash-landed here and then made the best of it. I worked my entire adult life to separate this weaponry chain from the government's restrictions and gave countless speeches at Sumdac professing my innocence as I had the makings of warheads stored beneath my feet on a daily basis. I lied, I cheated, and I worked--and the product lies beneath you, above you and to all sides. With my bare hands, I carved into corporate granite the position _you inhabit today_, petty squeals and all, and you believe you have open right to everything that is yours—_and_ mine?"

Handsome face suddenly easing from its scornful scowl, Megatron laughed too softly, grip on Starscream's tie remaining hard and pitiless.

"You believe that I should… _trust_ you."

The speech, nor the sudden, unnervingly silky switch, did not fall on deaf ears. Starscream's eyes were wide, set in a pale, narrow face that seemed caught between emotions. He obviously did not know which expression was more advantageous with his boss and temporary partner within dangerous proximity: close enough to bite, or spit, or disband a partnership completely.

Megatron did none of these things. He smiled, instead, cocking his head, grey eyes remaining locked with Starscream's.

"I think not. You are, after all, so young. How young are you, Starscream?

"Twenty-seven," the younger man managed after a long pause. His next breath hissed through his teeth; the fact that Megatron was close enough to hear it was not lost on him. His leader held him still, smile unwavering.

"Twenty-seven…?" he drawled, deep voice thickening the young man's blood with a ripple of heavy iron.

"President," Starscream breathed, finally stunned into submission by the velvet proximity of the other man.

Megatron nodded ever-so-slightly; even without touch, he could already feel the shift in the child. Starscream, ever acerbic and defensive if not occupied with whining and sniveling, finally retreated. The only time the brat was truly quiet—blessedly quiet, even if miserable and hissing and tense--was under the tyrant's hands. Otherwise, he wouldn't shut up.

Megatron had come to cherish silence with all of him.

"So very young. Young mind, young instincts. Surely you… see my logic."

Megatron's grip finally slid free from his inferior's tie, only to drift up and brush the collar of his foppish lavender dress-shirt, far too close to his warm, exposed neck.

"Don't you?"

As anticipated, Starscream stiffened completely, all the way down to his brittle bones. It seemed almost painful. But where he had simply weathered the touch beforehand and then excused himself, this time the flash in Starscream's eyes did not allow for a quiet exit.

"You have an affinity for unnecessary touch, President," he finally grit out, a world of defamations unsaid daggering out of his eyes and ungenerous lips even as his shoulders shook.

"I find it helps the message sink in," Megatron offered with a bland smile, big hand suddenly closing on the base of the young man's neck like a vice. His calluses scraped Starscream's pale skin, a proof of cleansing manual labor the boy did not nor would ever have. "Surely you do not object to my methods?"

"I do."

Two words had never made so much difference. The President felt the pressure spike between them and instantly craved more of this forthright traitor, but, alas, Starscream had completed his rebellion by simply speaking up.

For the moment, it was enough to simply draw away from the touch that so displeased him, even when it was obvious that the Seeker would have loved to seize the older man's wrist and snap it in half. But Megatron would not allow his moment—this glimpse of honesty, as it were--to slip by: he reached up and gripped Starscream's chin as hard as he had always wanted to, grey eyes boring into the boy's wide dark ones. His inferior instantly strained away, hands slapping down for support on the desk.

"At long last, I have some gauge of where your boundaries are—what you will and will not do to succeed," Megatron murmured, devouring the brat's face with a fervor that bordered on manic.

"Touch me once more and you will find where each and every one of them lie," Starscream hissed through his perfect teeth, entire body radiating poison. He fought with every tendon not to shove the older man off of him. Megatron's brow rose.

"Threat, Starscream, or promise?"

Starscream's eyes lit at the mere suggestion, as well as the older man's indulgent tone. Megatron studied the boy as if seeing him for the first time, forcibly tilting his face up until the warm light of his office displayed all of Starscream's ugliness and beauty and twisted, subjective sensuality in one moment while the boy snarled within the confines of his treacherous mouth. Megatron smirked, more than satisfied.

"You are, after all, one of her brood. I doubt the predisposition for laying on one's back to ford uncertain waters could be anything but genetic."

Finally, he hit a nerve. Starscream nearly hissed with the magnitude of his fury, a ripple spreading underneath his horribly pale skin as he jerked his face free, sneering.

"Speak of my mother once more—"

"And what?"

The office was utterly silent. Starscream merely froze where his impetuous jerk placed him: dark, glossy hair sticking over his damp forehead, nostrils flared, eyes locked furiously on the hardwood floor and its dark whorls. At length, the President sighed.

"Little Seeker," he murmured deeply, half in a trance. "Always think before you speak. It disappoints me when you don't, and life will proceed much more pleasantly if you don't disappoint me."

The President leaned in, past Starscream's turned chin, and breathed in, smelling the boy's skin—the sweat beneath his collar, the newest cologne over his hot, arrested breath. Megatron had long lost his eye for appreciating youth in that wanting way. But now? How this crucible of shaking rage and cleverness gave him back his sight--all five senses, should he earn the right to restore them in the hateful furnace that was Starscream.

Uncharacteristic as it was forbidden, the temptation to fasten his mouth on the boy's neck in the middle of his office nearly made his strong hands twitch on either side of Starscream's violin hips. His nose brushed behind the Seeker's ear and a shudder—almost convulsive for the combined force of the strength of it and the attempt to hold it back with rigid red muscles—shot through the body before him.

Half disgust, certainly—but the other half?

"I am fairly easy to please, if you… take the time to learn how."

He felt rather than saw Starscream's eyes half-close, his breathing take on a different rhythm, unsteady and tense. Smiling a fox's smile, Megatron took his hand and reached upwards, skimming his fingers over the orange silk for a moment before fastening on the neck of Starscream's tie. He pulled.

"Obedience, Starscream. There is no greater skill than to obey." The words seemed to come from a place outside himself, soft and deep. His lips were centimeters from the boy's skin, pulse jumping underneath that fine, warm layer. "Quickly, willingly, and without question."

Starsream, locked in some sort of trance provided by the older man's slow movements and his crushing authority, merely grit his teeth. He waited as Megatron waited: for some kind of snap or splintering. The instant the pressure across the back of his exposed neck became firm and the hiss of silk against silk hit his ears, however, and unraveled some vital part of him--he lost both his composure and his ability to abide.

Tie half-way down his chest, Starscream was not thinking of his career. Starscream, ever-scheming, was not thinking about future promotions and the obsequious farce he worked toward every waking moment of his office existence. He thought only of himself, in that terrifying second, and so could not control the instincts that would preserve him from a blow too deep to take.

An animal sound escaping his throat, Starscream shoved his employer away as fiercely as he could, vaulting off of the desk in the next second and sprinting out of the room, leaving a scent of fear as strong and vibrating as the harsh lights in the hallway.

The doors snapped shut again. Megatron stayed standing at his desk as the boy's hand-prints faded from his broad chest. He looked at the door for a long moment, pretending he could hear Starscream's narrow designer shoes slapping down the stairway as he sought more distance between them, then lowered himself into his dark armchair. He had not been expecting that, certainly, but surprised himself at how much he enjoyed it. After a moment, the esteemed President of D-Con industries chuckled deeply, one finger playing with the finely-trimmed silver hair at his temple.

Finally, a real reason to look forward to work in the morning.


	24. Duality

A/N: Okay, bit of a canon-switcheroo here.

Shockwave's ass belongs to Megatron. Period. He doesn't have the time to be a full-on spy, what with all his sexy-secretary-ing/contracted hits, and so only gallivants out every so often disguised as an Autobot informant (fakeintelligenceofficer aka Longarm sans the Prime) to give helpful and utterly planned information to the DPD. So. Yeah.

Also, personality shift on Longarm, which is also slightly permissible because Longarm doesn't seem to have a concrete personality except for "a really good guy, yannoe! Me, a Decepticon? Whaaaaaat."

_Characters: Longarm-slash-Shockwave, Blurr, Bee, brief Megatron, brief DPD_

_Pairings: none, but some intense Longarm-Blurr hero-worship. Juuuust hero-worship. No, kids, I'm not THAT sick…Although I did think about it. Because Shockwave is quite gay, if thoroughly hyperallergic to hyperactive children._

_Warnings: Blurr POV at the end, so severe ADHD-writing. Harsh violence beforehand, and vomiting is a sign of a seeeeerious concussion, jussoyannoe._

* * *

Duality

* * *

"Would you be open for something around five? Yeah? Great. Okay, and clear the room. This is too big to say over the phone. Four or five, at the least. Yeah, we're getting somewhere. Right. Can't say much more—keep the door open for me."

Seated at his wide mahogany desk, Megatron looked over at the tall, horribly skinny English-man standing by the full-length windows of his office. He appeared ghostly and unreal, an impression accomplished by more than just the weak light of the lamp illuminating his rigid back. The older man's eyes narrowed as Shockwave nodded and thanked the idiot officer on the other line before he hung up, tucked the cellphone into his vest and returned to staring silently into the purple night sky.

No matter how many times the President heard or saw it, it was simply impossible to comprehend that clear, masculine American voice coming out of Shockwave, especially when his most favored inferior was still dressed in his habitual black turtleneck and tailored vest, expression as blank as the glass in front of him. The man was the most insanely talented double-agent the world had to offer, seemingly. The baffling transition made more sense when one realized he had 'lived' this self-created character for a stretch of five years (for reasons he preferred not to divulge and no one was willing to risk their skin to ask), but even Megatron was tricked.

He had seen 'Longarm' twice and instinctively disliked him—as a person utterly separate from Shockwave.

Longarm was a farce of an informant, a bandy, slouching, good-natured, grinning American: a practical impossibility, when Megatron had firmly believed that the pale agent's zygomaticus muscles had atrophied to the point that he was incapable of smiling. To know that a ruined eye and a cold mind was hidden behind those friendly blue glasses and white teeth made the President more prone to watching Shockwave closely—and dwelling a little longer on what could possibly happen were his favorite agent not so very, very loyal.

After all, were Starscream possessed of the same ability, that of ultimate duality and flawless duplicity, the President would have fired him before he walked in the door, then dragged him behind the building and shot him for the good of the world. Shockwave's shift into his alternate personality was so complete, there was no other word for it but horrifying. To combine the two in some sort of ugly chimera as he had done while on the phone… it almost felt as though the man were being possessed by an American demon: the warlord would have been no more unnerved had Shockwave began to vomit black ooze.

The two men remained in place in the ensuing silence, one mentally reciting his performance, the other typing rhythmically.

"You will remove yourself from my presence the next time you make contact," Megatron said at last, tone clipped. "I do not care where you make the call, save that is it in a secure area."

"Of course, sir," Shockwave responded absently, vague affectation perfectly restored.

After one last look at the maze of high-rises and the countless rows of black windows, he walked to the other man's desk and gathered the last of the 'reconnaissance' files—this time, his Lord had chosen a smaller group of secondary smugglers to pick off, ones that had been giving him trouble and knew nothing of their sources--and gave the President a short bow, expression unreadable.

"I will contact you when I am finished."

Megatron gave no response but a dismissive gesture, but still glared briefly at the closed door after the other man exited. Men like Shockwave were one in a million and, at the moment, the President couldn't help but be somewhat grateful for that diminutive number. Otherwise, he wouldn't sleep quite so soundly at night, knowing there was another perfectly objective killer on someone else's payroll.

* * *

Around five in the afternoon on an ordinary Thursday, a tall man with effortless short blond hair, roundish ice-blue glasses and a baggy grey hoodie meandered into the DPD and opened every door all the way to Magnus' office with little more than a saggy backpack and a strangely serious smile.

Immediately after he entered, all of the Primes followed and they remained cooped up in the small office for over an hour. Bumblebee and Blurr had watched this impeccably arranged migration with interest, then resumed picking all the staples out of the paper recycling like zombies (a task Optimus always set them to when the two boys were reduced to hanging around the DPD through mind-numbing boredom) until the group emerged again, the tall blond man looking far more relieved than before.

Seeing Blurr gaping at the new man—the runner was around often enough that he knew the regular faces of the force, and this man was not one—Bee prodded him with his foot to get his fragile attention, motioning the other boy close.

"I'm not s'posed to tell you this," Bee began in a hushed voice, which nearly brought Blurr into his lap for sheer conspiratorial excitement. He motioned at the lanky man, who was leaning on a nearby desk and making conversation with a short Irish cop named Cliffjumper. "But he's an informant for the smuggling guys they're trying to catch."

"Whatsaninformant?" Blurr whispered, eyes wide as dinner plates. Bee rolled his eyes, whapping him on the shoulder.

"It's a spy, numbnuts."

It was fun getting the drop on Blurr and impressing the other teen with his knowledge of police-work (which was the closest profession to 'secret agent' that Blurr could find and thus envied intensely), but that very second, Bee realized he shouldn't have said _anything_.

After that, Bee had no peace. Blurr would not allow him a single silent moment, in or out of school, without whining about Longarm. He wanted to _meet_ Longarm, he wanted to _talk_ to Longarm, he wanted to _touch_ Longarm, he wanted to have Longarm's _children_. That last part, of course, was volunteered by a very snide Bumblebee, but Blurr didn't even stop swooning long enough to squawk _awheckno_ at him, and that made the last of Bee's resilience give out. A goal that had survived in Blurr's brain for three days (or 432 5-minute ADHD 'mental reboot' increments) was not going to disappear at something as inconsequential as teasing. They were meeting Longarm.

"Areyoureallyaspy!? Ohmygodthatislikethe _coolest thing ever_! Teachmeeverythingyouknow, ohmygod!"

It took two weeks of hanging around the station like creeps, but all of this came spewing out of Blurr's mouth at double-lightning-speed as he sprinted toward the tall man and actually slammed into him with all 110 lbs he claimed, clinging to Longarm's baggy hoodie like a love-struck bush baby with wide, sparkly eyes to match.

"Hey, who let the speed of light in?" Longarm exclaimed, weak from the practical sock in the stomach. As if in reflex, he put one hand on the unintelligible teenager's head; Blurr instantly swooned into the touch, absorbing as much awesome-vibe into his trembling little body as he could. His absorption was interrupted by two hands on his shoulders, which hooked into his shirt and dragged him off of his spy-hero.

"Sorry. This is Blurr. He's kind of a dipwad," Bee said with an accusatory look at the crown of the younger boy's head; Blurr only looked up from his slouch in his best friend's arms with a moony grin. Longarm laughed, then dusted himself off--a humorous gesture for someone who padded around in a turquoise-ribbed sweat-suit.

"No problem. Just watch out next time," he said, pushing his sunglasses up his impeccably straight nose and smiling bemusedly down at Blurr's boneless stupor. "Have a good one."

He ruffled the boy's hair before dropping by the front desk for a little salute, then was out the door. Right about the time Bee was trying to shove his friend's stupidly skinny jelly-body off of him, because his knees were starting to hurt, the jingle of the door's bell seemed to snap Blurr back to life.

The young sprinter went from zero to sixty in three-point-two seconds, dashing over desks like an Olympic hurdler. He made it to the door before Bee caught up with him, but Blurr still managed to fling it open and shriek "_Waittakemewithyou!_" to Detroit at large before he was dragged back inside and subdued with a soda. After a brief lecture about jumping over police officer's desks, Blurr was sent back to pull staples out of the recycling, still sporting a wide, happy and ultimately wordless grin that lasted all afternoon.

By the time the two boys left the station, Bee was looking at Blurr as though his best friend had gone nuts—but nuts was just another word for crazy and crazy was just another word for determined, and determined Blurr was. After that day, he decided, he wasn't going to Math class or Spanish. Chemistry, English, all of them—he didn't need them where he was going.

No, he was going to become a secret agent and he was going to catch smugglers and wear cool glasses and Longarm was going to teach him how.

* * *

Everyone in the DPD who had been forced to endure Blurr's blinding hyperactivity for more than five minutes was filled with a suitable trepidation when he appeared at the door to the police station immediately after school let out the following day. Fortunately, all the officers ended up more confused than anything. The boy, rather than darting around to everyone's desks and demanding to see what ultrasecretcoolamazing secret agent crime fighting stuff they were working on, funneled his energies toward emptying the trash and refilling the water jug cups (albeit at incredible speeds) and being alarmingly quiet, always looking up with wide, vigilant meerkat eyes when the door jingled open.

Alas, Longarm did not appear for the rest of that week, nor the first half of the next, but Blurr did not give up, which was both an amazing and horrible thing for someone of his attention span.

Finally, his wish was answered. His parents usually threatened to march over and physically shove him into the car if he dallied at the DPD later than seven, but anything was excusable when hanging out with Bumblebee. His best friend had just run out in his freshly repaired yellow bug to pick up pizza for the station. He left Blurr behind only because the younger boy insisted that, if he left, Longarm would come and do the coolest stuff secret ever and he wouldn't be there to see it. That time, he would have been right.

Sometime around ten, the door jingled. Like always, Blurr's head popped up over a divider, then went back down—then snapped back up again, eyes wide. Longarm was back, currently striding through the maze of desks with his stylish sweats and a glossy layer of perspiration on his pale face despite the January chill. He knocked hurriedly at Magnus' door, head down, then stepped in. By then, Blurr was already stationed by the door, bouncing excitedly from heel to toe and biting his lip.

He nearly suffocated from joy when the _actual honest to goshness spy_ walked out again just seven minutes later, wiping his boyish hair from his forehead and beelining for the exit. Blurr was about to leap up and talk, to beg Longarm to let him come along and teach him everything he knew… but for reasons a sane person couldn't decipher, the runner ducked at the last minute, letting Longarm stride past him and out the door. With a ripple of adrenaline, Bumblebee and pizza were forgotten instantly.

After feverishly counting for twenty seconds, Blurr vaulted just one police desk and slipped out after his hero.

He kept a block behind the man at all times, remembering how he and Bee had followed Prowl around that one time to see where he was going, and Blurr _desperately with all of him_ wanted to know where Longarm was going. Did he have a secret base? Was it a house or did it have an entrance in the sewers, or was it _both_–and how impressed would he be if he walked in the door to his base/underground-sewer-hideout and Blurr was already waiting there? He would _have_ to train him, and it was then that Blurr knew this was the test he had always been waiting for.

Longarm was tricky, wonderfully concentrated on throwing people off his trail after transferring such vital _intel_. He swapped routes and changed paces at least three times: he jogged around one corner and Blurr nearly skidded into sight when the spy slowed to a casual walk in the next moment, hands in the pockets of his baggy pants. Blurr was so focused on keeping him in sight while staying _out_ of sight that he didn't pay any kind of attention to the changing landscape of the city. Sidewalks and buildings were just darkened hiding places for the moment, turning blue and cold as night descended further and further. Street signs came more and more rarely and the buildings crept closer together.

He only trailed Longarm for fifteen minutes, but it felt like eons, especially when the dark was only broken by the occasional rush of bright yellow headlights. Then, after waiting just a second too long to round a corner, he lost the agent at a fork in two buildings. Blurr was left staring at a dark, narrow street he didn't recognize in the least, frigid air just managing to soak past his hoodie and his salty adrenaline and, for once, reality began to penetrate the aqua haze Blurr lived in every second of his existence.

The excitement of it all flickered down to an uncomfortable sizzle in his stomach. He was alone in a claustrophobic, industrial-type street with just one streetlight. There were no footsteps. The dense cold seemed to stretch for miles, through concrete and girders and brick. Where was he?

A brief pat of his hoodie pockets revealed nothing. He even forgot to grab his cellphone before leaving, but that was no surprise because here had been no time to think only _do_ and this was so important. Where was Longarm? The street was very dark. Did robbers live here? Was Longarm here to catch the robbers?

Something clattered in one of the alleys, making the hair stand up on the back of the boy's neck.

Teeth chattering, Blurr suddenly wanted Bumblebee nearby, or maybe Bulkhead, or maybe both—but Bulkhead would definitely be better at shoving people over because no matter what Bee said he didn't even weigh a buck fifty even though he ate those weight-gaining bars that tasted awful but thank goodness he never really noticed that Blurr took one because they were really expensive and—rattling his head, Blurr squinted and hunched over a little, trying with every skin-cell just to focus on his slight trepidation, which he felt was a very valuable thing at this point.

If just because the meaning of _lost_ sank in a little more with every footstep, the skinny runner crept down the nearest alleyway, the smell of sulfur and other ugly chemicals turning the air grey. He kept walking further and further into the maze-like darkness, only whipping around twice when he thought he heard footsteps or a clanging noise. Finally, at the end of an alley, a ghostly light flickered on to his left. Heart jumping, Blurr almost opened his mouth said saiddidyelled anything, just to maybe find another human, but someone spoke first.

"Connection established. Come in. Shockwave to Megatron."

It was a faint voice, hazy and bored at the same time. The hollow through-a-pipe sound of it Blurr go a little cold. Maybe it was British. Struck off-course again, the boy was so focused on deciphering the accent that he missed the next words, then cupped his ice-cold ears for more.

"—was successful. No suspicion. Routine reception: they are planning to intercept at the secondary drop-off point as scheduled. The guns were reduced as per your orders. They will seize no more than twelve grand's worth—"

Peeking around the black wall, Blurr could just make out a silhouette in the weak light, which almost looked like it had horns or antlers of some kind. The visual almost distracted him to the point where he missed everything else, but then he managed to _tune in_ and realize _what the man was talking about_. The smugglers!

His body jump-started back to life and his first need was to get closer. He needed to get more information and report back to HQ because this was _hot_, important, vital. But, vibrating with nervousness, it didn't take more than a shoelace to get Blurr stumbling into a trash-can, which hit the alley with a clang and vomited its contents all over the alleyway floor.

He gasped, bracing his hands on the rough brick wall with a slapping noise, and instantly the man stopped talking. The silhouette snapped to the right, now most assuredly horned. There was a crack and the electronic light was doused, followed by a hasty scrape of shoes and Blurr suddenly felt fear: it burst into his constricted veins as the first brutally real thing he'd felt all night. Throat closing, mind imploding, he tried to run.

Sneakers slapping on the floor, the young sprinter managed a single alleyway before hard footsteps closed in behind him and someone grabbed the back of his hoodie and took him and slammed him into the side of a building head-first and Blurr winked out like a smashed light-bulb, all of his tiny pieces tinkling to the black alleyway floor.

* * *

"Hey, where'd Blurr go?" Bee asked around the pizza in his mouth, somehow managing to simultaneously frown and nip at an annoying string of cheese that wouldn't let go. Officers clattered around the table, all reaching for the still-steaming boxes of pizza he had brought, but none answered. He looked up at his older cousin, the ever-informed one, but Optimus only grabbed a hot slice for himself and frowned as well.

"I thought he left with you."

"Naw, he was here." Bulkhead piped in over a partition, pencil behind his ear and a stack of papers in his meaty hands. "I dunno where he is now, though. Maybe he's just in the bathroom? Last I saw of him was before that blond guy came in again."

"What blond guy?" Bee asked, then sprang to his feet and slammed his hands on the table, sending his uneaten crust bouncing over the edge of his plate. "Wait, the smuggler guy! He came here tonight?"

Bulkhead lifted his shoulders a little sheepishly, instantly retreating. Optimus looked at his cousin sharply around an undignified mouthful of pepperoni—he shouldn't even know who Longarm was--but Bee didn't see it: he was buried too far in his cupped hands, groaning. He fell into his chair again, shoulders sagging. Even with Blurr's skewed sense of mathematics, it didn't take long to put two and a super secret spy sensei together.

"Aw god, Blurr. _No_, man."

"You think he left with Longarm?" Optimus asked him slowly, leaning on the table with a concerned expression.

"If he's not here, he's definitely out stalking him right now."

"We should put a bell on that kid's neck," Ratchet groused, trundling up to take a slice of especially greasy pizza. He pinned it with a foul look then wiggled it as though to test for some sort of edible infrastructure that didn't seem to be present. "Least then we'd know where he was most'a the time."

"Screw a bell, he needs a tracking device," the youngest growled, but the anxiety in his voice was impossible to miss. Bee had been a little off-kilter, since Sari, and the idea of Blurr alone in the city at night was not a calming thought to anyone. He was honestly worried about his best friend.

Once again, the teenager's elusive heart peeked through his five layered shirts and A&M hoodie. Optimus wiped the grease from his hands and put one on his little cousin's shoulder, leaning over Bee and suddenly radiating the calm, solid authority he was so prized for.

"Listen. We'll put out an announcement to all the officers on patrol to keep watch for him. Wherever Blurr is, or… whatever he's trying to do, I'm certain Longarm will handle it if he's nearby. He's a good guy."

Bee nodded slowly as though accepting a hard truth, then, practically unheard of for a too-cool seventeen year old, he actually leaned his head against the Prime's broad shoulder, sighing with enough force to make his unkempt bangs puff out. Optimus smiled slightly and ruffled them back.

"Go ahead and finish eating. We'll have the whole city on alert in a few minutes. If Blurr is anything, Bumblebee, he's safe."

* * *

He existed, but only slightly.

Just when he thought he _was_, he suddenly _wasn't_. He was a dotted line silhouette for the longest time, then hot and cold prickles flirted with his potato-sack limbs and, slowly, feeling returned to his body. Blood moved like molasses through his jelly veins, different densities clashing and mixing and producing a horrible wiggle of his insides. Blurr didn't realize he was scrunching his nose up until someone thumbed his eyelid back and shined a bright light in his face.

"Hey. Hey, Blurr." It was a warm, steady voice, prodding him as strongly as the hands on his shoulders and face. "That's your name, right? You okay, little guy?"

Feeling like he was lifting a thousand-pound weight with his eyelids, Blurr opened his eyes. Despite the thick blue-black shadows and the dusty yellow beam of the mini-flashlight, the two opaque blue lenses hovering above him were unmistakable.

Longarm.

The man was frowning and also swimming in and out of focus awfully, _just awfully_, but safely. Within arms reach. Super secret agent Longarm was there and Blurr wasn't alone in an alleyway anymore. Blurr breathed out shakily, head full of sloshy red jelly.

Longarm asked him if he was okay again. He was going to nod, but, when he tried to get up, the sudden lurch and the swelling in his brain said that no, Blurr was _not_ okay and then he proved it by crashing back to his elbows again and spewing so hard it felt like his head was going to explode and were those his brains on the sidewalk?

"Woah. Woah, easy. Got all of it out?"

Blurr nodded weakly, wiping the slimy spit and puke from his mouth. Longarm rustled in his sweatpants and pushed a wrinkled napkin into his clammy hand, holding him upright. The older man waited until Blurr was leaning against the wall, skin glowing sickly white in the dark, before sitting back on his own haunches, brows knotted over his glasses.

"What are you doing out here? What happened?"

"I was… following," Blurr panted, face knotting from the effort of speaking. The words were actually normal, grit out of the swollen, slow-motion ball of pain that was his head. He swallowed against his dry, nasty throat, suddenly desperate for water.

"You were following who? Me?"

His memory flitted back to him in little pieces. Yes, he had been following Longarm. There was an explanation as to why (because he wanted to become a secret agent) but Blurr just shook it away, suddenly struggling to sit forward. For once, there was something more important than becoming a secret agent.

"There's someone. Someone that… knowsaboutthegunbust."

Longarm froze in the middle of carefully pushing him back against the wall; Blurr sagged the rest of the way, feeling too faint to keep his eyes open and too safe to resist with the spy's hand against his chest.

"Wait. You… heard something?"

"Uhhuh," the boy half-moaned, biting his lip as a new wave of nausea rolled through him. He desperately wanted to curl back up on the floor again—maybe puke one more time, if it would get rid of the pain. "Couldyoumaybe...callsomeone--"

"What something? Be specific," Longarm ordered. Then, when his strangely hard voice made Blurr wince, he squeezed the boy's shoulder gently, very gently, and added, "As you can. Be as specific as you can."

It took Blurr a minute to chase down all the details down in his swollen, disorganized head—it felt like he was broken in his brain, there wasn't something seriously wrong with him, was there?—and even then he couldn't remember exactly what was said, but he took a deep breath and began faintly:

"Hehada…funnyaccent. Itwasrealfunny and he was talking about…somethingbig—somethingmega… mega-something. That'sallIheardbeforehe—I dunno. Hechasedme and hurt my head somehow It really… itreallyhurts."

"Really. Did you… see him?" Longarm asked when he lapsed into silence; when Blurr didn't answer right away, the man took the back of his neck and forced him to look up, grip only tightening when the child groaned. Longarm's callused thumb counted toy-like vertebrae, his wrist tense enough that fifteen pounds of pressure would be simple. The boy's pulse was strong underneath his palm, skin warm.

"Blurr, I need to know. Did you see the man who attacked you?"

"No. Uh-uh." Blurr choked out, barely straining to get out of the man's too-firm grip. "Justashadow, but he had—hehad--"

Unable to find the word, Blurr put his hands to his head and weakly clawed two fingers, making antennae. At last, Longarm exhaled and let go of his delicate spine, leaving the child to fall back against the wall (and mewl when he hit the brick, face scrunching in pain). He put one hand to his face, using the other one to pat Blurr on the arm.

"Alright. It's okay. You did good," he said bracingly, suddenly quiet again and frowning down at the alley floor.

And then he just kneeled there, and kept kneeling. Watching him through half-lidded eyes as they sat across from each other in the cold, silent alley, Blurr somehow found the energy to bristle. Shouldn't they be rushing to the DPD? Shouldn't they be bursting in and saying they had found someone and he attacked Blurr and Blurr survived because he was just that awesome but he couldn't have done it without Longarm? When he couldn't take it anymore, the runner cleared his sticky throat.

"Whatarewewaitingfor? Wehaveto—totellsomeone. Thiscould change... everything."

Longarm just grimaced, hand drifting up to push at the back of his neck.

"I, ah… to be honest, I don't think it's a good idea to tell anyone about this."

"Wh-what?! Whynotit's…reallyimportant!" Blurr gasped. His very voice hurt his head, but he grimaced the pain away and pushed on, struggling away from the wall again, struggling to _reach_ Longarm. "Thebadguy knows about the bust andifheknows _they_know!"

"Hold on," Longarm said sternly, taking him by the shoulders again; Blurr instantly froze under the touch, the authority of it. Longarm's thin mouth twitched into a haggard smile. "You look like a kid with a… really big imagination, I'll give you that, but it's more important than you'd think. How can you be sure you remembered all of what you saw—and remembered it correctly? That was a pretty big knock on the head you took. At important stages like this, bad information can destroy an undercover operation. Leaving out one little detail could ruin the whole thing."

The informant looked down, pushing his glasses up his nose with a perfectly worried expression.

"Would you really want to put the station in danger, Blurr, after all they've worked for?"

"N-n-noofcourse—not!" Blurr swallowed with difficulty, forcing the words out faster than they wanted to come. He managed to grasp for the man, catching hold of his baggy sleeve and tugging needlessly. "But--! Iftheyknowabout the bust... then they know that youtoldthepoliceofficers! Theyknowthatyou're a _spy _andyou'reind-danger!"

Longarm just shook his head, the resigned smile reappearing.

"You can't tell anyone that, either. If I know, that's enough: but no one can know that I know," he explained gently, detaching Blurr's hand from his hoodie and holding it. Even with such a small touch, he could see the boy melt, and a cold mind had long ago realized what the child was searching for. Longarm leaned close. "I promise I'll handle it if anything goes wrong. I know it's a lot to ask, but… can you keep tonight a secret, Blurr? Just between you and me."

Blurr's eyes went wide in the dark of the alley, body suddenly jumpstarting back into movable parts again.

"Iwouldbeawesomed. Imeanhonored!" he sputtered, grabbing hold of Longarm's sleeve again and tugging like he never wanted to let go. "That'swhatbeingaspyisallaboutandI… I would be sohonoredto—"

"Good. Now let's get you back to the station.

If asked, Blurr was pretty sure a planeshift right then would have killed him and split his head open like a raw, oily egg, but the older man didn't wait for him to say anything more and just heaved him to his feet with a sudden jerk. Arm-over-shoulder, Longarm hauled him to a nearby car like a sack of laundry and shoved him in so hard (_accidentally_) that his head hit the back of the seat and the _pain went down to his teeth_. But Blurr choked down what he thought was another puking fit and just breathed and breathed and _breathed_ until the other car door slammed and they started moving.

Towards the station. Towards home. Suddenly, Blurr's view of the dashboard darkened and he had to duck his head to keep from dissolving back into a dotted line again.

"Th-thankyou. Thankyousomuch," the boy muttered throatily, swallowing. He frowned into the air as the last of the color drained from his face. "Forsavingme."

Longarm looked over with a strange stillness, glasses failing to hide his dispassion as Blurr finally passed out cold in the passenger seat, brilliant red blood only now trickling out of his close-cropped dark hair and down his white cheek.

Allowed the privacy of unconsciousness, Shockwave punched the car into gear and ignored how the boy slammed into the dashboard like a crash dummy, turning the corner of the industrial section at top speed and wondering quite how he would phrase this to his two bosses. What would be the proper tone of voice for delivering an unconscious boy to a police station with an implied plea of innocence and an overtone of humble heroism—and the proper tone for recounting the same to a man who would be furious that he didn't kill the boy?

The little idiot had seen his shadow, after all, even if he was too dull to piece together the ultimate impossibility of his attacker and his rescuer being anything but the same person. He was incredibly lucky the child was so easily manipulated. Regardless, he would face Megatron's fury. Shockwave knew the meaning of Longarm's role in the close-knit center of their opposition, and an immersion like this led one to have certain intuitions: a scene like this might actually help their cover. A moment to ingratiate himself to the department like this was priceless.

By the time Shockwave pulled into the silent back alley of the police station and stilled himself with one hand on the wheel, as much to gather his persona as his words, he knew what to do. He got out of the car, bundled the boy's limp body into his arms (close to his chest, like a father would hold a son) and sprinted into the Detroit Police Department, glasses askew and a plea in the back of his throat.

As far as he was concerned, it went rather well. The furor was instant and devoid of suspicion, hands scrambling to take the bleeding boy before the fat old medic shouted to keep him still, keep his head elevated. Someone called an ambulance and their questions were uninspired; what had happened? He wasn't sure. He found the boy in an alley and he didn't know much about medicine so he just drove him back to the station. He wasn't thinking. Should have gone straight to the hospital. So sorry.

When he extricated himself from the crowd, the third Prime approached the tall blond informant to take his shoulder, gripping firmly when Longarm bowed his head and rubbed at his nose, radiating exhaustion and saying _how he just didn't know how something like this could happen_ and _did they need him for anything_?

No, of course. He had already done so much. If Shockwave were anything but perfectly uncaring, he would have fought the urge to smile.

Still, there was room for improvement. If the paramedic's expression (or the cracking noise the boy's skull made upon impact) was any indication, a melancholy visit to the hospital might have been in order as well. As Longarm exited the DPD at midnight, Shockwave made a mental note to schedule a space in the next week to drop by the hospital before meeting with the interstate arms-dealers.

In his thoughts, it was as much a crime to leave something unfinished as it was to do it incorrectly, and 'Blurr' was now an assignment that had to be taken to the end--but if the child decided to speak out in any way, the end might come sooner than he suspected.


	25. Strange Places

A/N: **Entirely Torque-centric**, so pass on if you would rather not. This isn't her happy ending—that's still in my head and it's so feckin adorable it makes my teeth rot—but it's the beginning of it. I hope you're happy for her, because I certainly am :]

I suppose this clinches her Mary-Sue nature by having a character fall senselessly head-over-heels for her, but ITS SCRAPPER. Due to his adorable lack of coordination, he can't fall any way but head-over-heels. Bawww.

Also, an age-fiddling. I'll update OC to this effect when I can, but Torque is now 31 and LD is 40. It doesn't make much difference, but FYI just so your brow doesn't furrow.

_Characters: Scrapper, Torque, brief Warpath_

_Pairings: Scrapper/Torque_

_Warnings: Lots of cursing ala a very frizzled and bitch-tastic Torque. Also, put up your heart shields, SCRAPPER WILL STEAL YOU AGAIN._

* * *

Strange Places

* * *

The jazz piano sounded like it was in the room.

The lights went low, music tripping playfully up and down the scales until the red curtain slithered back, revealing a shapely woman with a ridiculously vintage microphone almost flush against her full lips. The song was short, sweet and husky, syrupy rhythm enhanced by a few swirls and dips around a chrome dancing pole; the dancer's white-gloved hand wandered over her own naked neck and shoulders, sliding ever lower. Crooning (mouthing) the last note, she slipped down to the glossy stage floor, glittery costume blurring into a lap-full of diamonds against her thick brown thighs for the watching men.

In a second, however, the gems winked out: a stringy scare-crow man in a hounds-tooth jacket and ugly mustard slacks was suddenly mere feet from her, a single red rose in his outstretched hand. If the dancer's brown eyes widened at the sight of him rising into of the halo of the stage-lights, no one saw.

After a split-second, just in time for the final note, she twitched the rose from his big hand, slipped it between her breasts, cocked her leg with a pretty smile and the lights went out.

* * *

Torque made another unintelligible sound of rage and half-punched the dumpster.

It was the fourth time she'd done so since she took herself outside and her hand was starting to feel the effects of it. She wasn't one for improv, and when the man (the guy from the bar, after _how_ many weeks) stood up and pushed the flower at her like some drooling fourth-grader, she'd hardly been able to resist slapping him across the face with it. When she got backstage, she threw stuff around, thoroughly scared her girls and ordered the tiny, glittery room at large to tell the idiot with the rose to meet her out back.

The lead dancer stood in the alleyway by all of the girls' cars, clacking her heels against the concrete and still glittering in her white sequined outfit. The only sign of the cold affecting her was the white fog streaming out of her nose and mouth, despite the fact that the bulk of her costume's fabric was tied up in her opera-gloves. Torque could hardly resist grinding her teeth, for sheer force of vengeance. Yes, she had been high-strung lately and he probably wasn't going to deserve it, but this was the last infraction she could suffer.

This man needed to learn the meaning of fuck off.

Torque stiffened at the clank of the metal back door, turning. The construction worker came out, leggy and awkward and almost too tall for the doorway—and he came out _smiling_. Apparently they'd left out the 'idiot' part when Buttercup called him back. The second he saw her furious face, however, his shambling horse-smile dropped and he looked away, already tugging at the collar to his button-down.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

She took a cold kind of satisfaction from the sheer iron tone of her voice and the way he flinched. Arms crossed, Torque waited as he took a deep breath, eyes just locked on the concrete , which for some reason pissed the hell out of her. It made her want to grind her stilettos into his cringing feet until he scampered off.

"What makes you think you can come here again and interrupt a show like that? "

"Didn't… mean'ta innerrupt," he finally puffed out, big ears turning red. "Just wanted t'… y'know. T'see you again."

"Don't act like--ugh!" Torque chomped down on her lip, tasting waxy lipstick; it was all she could do not to enact the stiletto fantasy with the man's dopey denseness grinding away at her sanity, her grip on _reality_. "My god, you saw me once in a bar. What does that mean? Are we best friends now?"

"Would'a bought ya a drink if you'da let me," he began, then stopped dead at her livid glare. He put up his hand then wiped at his retreating hairline, muttering thickly into the sleeve of his hounds-tooth jacket, "I'm—sorry. Sorry. Y'know. Real sorry."

"Damn straight you'd better be sorry," she snapped. "You know how bad this looks?"

He only gave her a wide-eyed look—like he had broken some kind of law without his knowledge _and he had_—and Torque went beyond help. Clawing at this dodgy, awkward construction worker became some sort of cathartic excuse for the past weeks: a past two weeks where her car had broken down and was probably dead, Lockdown wasn't speaking to her and she had an awful feeling about it, at least three stooges had tried to pick her up at the bars where she tried to forget how awful her existence was, and, the clincher, she couldn't even escape it at home because _her apartment was leaking and the goddamn landlord wouldn't return her calls_.

She was cold, she was miserable, and Mr. Complicated Answers just so happened to step on her exposed toes with his dirt-smeared steel-toed boots and she was fucking _fine_ with that. She set to shrieking at him without even thinking of who could hear her, jabbing a finger at the poor man like she would skewer him alive.

"You know many problems we've had with dicks like you who get obsessed with dancers? You know how many times we've had bouncers walk the girls to their cars, even follow them home to make sure they get there safely? The definition of harassment gets pretty fucking huge when you work where I do! The rule here is toss first and ask questions later. If a guy does anything more than sit and stare, he's a problem—do you want to be a problem, guy?"

"I—I don'—jeez, I'm just—aw, gawd--"

The nameless construction worker backed away, head down, hulking shoulders hunched, and that only called her forward. She closed in on that show of weakness with her teeth practically bared, running high and clean on indignation and bitterness alike.

"Well, obviously you do, alright? Because you're never coming in here again if you—"

Suddenly, the creak of a heavy door made them both turn, dousing the burn under Torque's naked skin as quickly as a punch to the mouth.

"This guy bothering you, T?"

Torque stared uncomprehendingly at the huge young man in the doorway, one meaty fist still clamped on the handle. She could hear the faint noise of the next performance from the dark, pink-tinted innards of the club, now changed to a techno base. After a second of blank silence, Warpath stepped into the cold and let go of the door; the resultant boom somehow startled Torque back to life.

"Um. No. No, he's not," she fumbled, searching for something to look at that _wasn't_ the bouncer's suspicious face. Her voice was suddenly much smaller, much meeker. "He's—uh—"

She bit her lip again, thinking hard. He'd probably followed her 'visitor' the second he headed towards the back—and she actually found herself searching for the right cover story. When Warpath came out, she had started talking before she could stop it: a visceral reaction to the bouncer's sudden and muscular presence, which suddenly put everything in perspective.

Whatever this guy was, _regardless_ of whether she was inches from handing him his proverbial ass on a plate, he wasn't a piece of trash. He didn't deserve to be tossed out on his face. She knew at least that much.

The guy's knobby knees were practically knocking together. Warpath glared, and didn't stop glaring; she practically heard his tendons creaking threateningly. Finally, blowing air through her nose, Torque clenched her eyes shut and pressed her fist to her forehead.

"He's… he's my boyfriend, alright?"

There was an uncomfortable pause: enough for Warpath to stare at her incredulously, of course.

"Thought I saw him—"

Warpath had a near photographic memory: he would be the one to remember the strange, lanky man sitting with the rest of his construction worker thugs two weeks ago, probably because his expression was one of wonder instead of lust. Torque shook her head, turning the nameless worker into a cringing object with little more than a dismissive gesture.

"He's new. Came to surprise me, like the idiot he is."

Maybe she was better at improv than she thought… or she didn't have to fake the annoyed tone. The dancer thought she was in the clear when Warpath smiled, face lighting in understanding—then practically outed her.

"Happy birthday, right."

She would have growled. Now the putz knew it was her birthday. The thick bouncer eyed the skinny man with a chuckle, making Scrapper feel unaccountably nervous—as though he would be on the other side of those fists if he wronged the woman in front of him. Like he would ever get a chance to. Warpath crossed his bulging arms.

"Jesus. Rate that you were goin', I thought you'd swear off men for another fifty years." He looked back to Torque, waggling his eyebrows. "Whassa matter, finally found out you don't have a dick?"

"Yeah, I did. About five minutes ago, when I cut it off to fit in this costume," she snapped, throwing her hands up. "Goddammit, 'Path, you wonder why I don't tell you anything? It's because I don't want to take shit like this from you."

Warpath's smile faltered—her shrill tone wasn't lost on him, especially since they traded jabs like that all the time—but Torque just shook her head and waved him back to the door, teeth clenched.

"I'm fine. If you hear any screaming, it's probably me ripping his testicles off. So _go_." Then, softer, "I'll be done in time for the floor-show. Go on. Please."

She watched, then glared at the young man until he apparently swallowed his misgivings about leaving her alone and retreated back inside, cutting off the base-beat of the club and leaving the alley silent again. Nearly groaning, Torque turned back--only to find the ugly hounds-tooth coat thrust inches in front of her face, at the end of the other man's arm. She batted at it instinctively, nearly stumbling on her spindly heels, then scraped back and glared at him.

"What are you—stop!" she barked, hands balled into fists. She wanted to ball both the stupid man and his stupid coat into a lump and toss them into the nearest dumpster. She was steaming at the ears, absolutely prickling with the stress of it all—she had just lied to one of her close friends, and all to protect a man she didn't even know.

Jesus, common decency was hard.

"It's just, you—y'look cold," the man mumbled quickly from behind his coat, only pushing it towards her again. "Y'gotta be cold."

Somehow, that made it through the anger-haze. Like a single streetlamp in a Detroit night, she realized: he was offering the jacket to her. For warmth. For a moment, she could do nothing but stare, at a profound loss.

"What does that have to do with… anything?" she said at last, husky voice suddenly weak. That weakness—that exhaustion, because her fuses always had been so short—spread to her chest when he didn't move, just holding it there for her; not even looking at her or her taped-up and diamond-laced breasts.

"Just… put it on. Please."

She sighed, the last of the fight leaving her as she realized she wasn't getting out of this. Whatever _this_ was.

"Alright. Fine."

Reaching forward, Torque took the coat and mechanically wrapped it around herself, realizing for the first time, past the flush of anger in her skin, that she was really quite naked and it was cold outside. Shockingly cold, blue and crisp like it would snow soon. If just because of the man and his silence, she was suddenly aware of her nakedness for the first time in years, and her fingers unconsciously moved to button the coat, if just for his sake.

The construction worker watched her nervously as she settled into the scratchy fabric, big hands fretting at his sides. Torque let out a deep, deep breath, glitter-coated face suddenly blank as her mind.

"What… are you?"

It wasn't a question normal people asked, or even sane people, but the man just dropped his eyes again, reaching up to pop off his cap and muss at his thin hair with a miserable quirk of his mouth. He took a deep breath, white streaming out.

"I'm just'a guy who… wants a chance t'be decent ta a gal he can't stop tinkin' bout."

Torque simply stared at him, cold once more vanishing alongside the alleyway and the number she had to get back in time for. 'What' had been the right question: the dancer, thirty-one and realistic, simply couldn't believe he belonged to this world.

"You can't fall in love with anybody after seeing them once," she said at last, voice strangely hard.

"Twice. Tree times if y'count taday." He ducked under her budding glare, then, tiny smile unshaken, continued humbly, "N'I didn' say I was in love."

She dissolved a little, if just from shock. He looked up at her, dopy and gawky and horribly sincere. On went his cap again; his hands crept into his pockets.

"Not askin' for anythin' more'n dinner. For yer birfday." Seeing her stiffen, he freed his hands just to wave them hastily. "Or--or not yer birfday. Anyting y'wants. Jus'… please. Ain't above pleadin'."

When she didn't _want_ pleas, the man looked around the cold alley as though struck by some small panic, searching for anything to help the words come easier. At last, he took another deep, shaking breath and blurted out,

"I jus… I gotta real good, weird feelin 'bout you and I'd neva be able t'sleep easy again f'I didn'… try my best. Somethin's tellin' me dis is impor'ant, and I never done anythin' impor'ant before, so I don't know howta, but I'm gonna try. And yannoe, y'should… y'should gimme a chance 'n quit yellin' at me, 'cos I'm tryin'. I'm tryin' real hard."

He ended with his face down, hands rammed in his pockets.

For a woman so empathetic, how she didn't see him crumbling under the weight of his sudden bravery before then was a complete mystery. It was _killing_ him to be this forward and she finally realized it. He wasn't a user, wasn't a player; those terms had probably never touched his ears, nor been comprehended. He was not of the concrete and neon world they both stood in, freezing down to their bones.

No, this man she hadn't exchanged more than a fifty words with was risking more than she knew just for a chance to increase that number. To speak with her. The sudden flood of black guilt would have taken her to the concrete, if white, warm wonder hadn't already wrapped her up, suspending her above the hard ground and her own stilettos.

"Okay," she said at last. The word seemed too simple, too small, compared to all he had given just to get this far. It didn't express how sorry she was for yelling at him. Torque took a deep breath, feeling as though the rest of her, opera gloves and scratchy hounds-tooth jacket, were floating. "But… just one date."

"Jus' one," he repeated firmly when he found his voice, hardly daring to believe the word she used.

The two stared at each other for a long moment, each reliving that tense instant before she got in the car a week ago. Then Torque suddenly laughed, shaking her head as though she couldn't believe the mess she was in—neither the total stranger in front of her nor what she had to ask next.

"So… what's your name?"

The man—construction worker number 28, stationed in Detroit for twenty weeks with five to go--grinned sheepishly.

"Scrappa."

She returned the smile, disconcerted by how shy he made her feel once she wasn't screaming.

"Torque."

"I, uh, I know. I saw it. On the… y'know. The line-up. For the dance." Scrapper scratched at his clean-shaven chin, embarrassed even to mention it because it implied he had been _looking_, but he managed to irk out, "Y'dance real good. S-sing real good, too."

"I don't sing."

She chuckled at his mystified expression. It was clear from his wide hazel eyes that he had _seen_ her singing on-stage and that had to be the end of it. The dancer, emphasis on dancer, shook her head, gesturing somewhat lamely.

"I can't. So I, you know, lip-synch."

"Ah. Okay. Well, uh. Y'still dance real good," he offered, then another rush of blood took the substance from his knees again, making him bluster. "I mean, yannoe. The way ya do. Not with the pole'er anythin', just you dancin'. Y'move real nice. Pretty."

"You are so… strange."

It wasn't the most polite thing she could have said, but it was the only thing she could find: and Scrapper took it with a chuckle and a shrug of his massive shoulders, smiling down at her even as his eyes were locked nervously on the side of the club.

"Didn' know I was till I metcha," he admitted, expression suddenly both stymied and overwhelmed as he blew some air from his cheeks. "I'm learnin' a lot 'bout m'self dis week."

He brightened immediately when the woman offered her tiny hand to his big hairy one with a wry smile.

"Then a dinner with me might knock you out."

"I'm more'n willin' t'take the risk. I'll bring my hardhat," he offered, then lost the half-joke and plucked shyly at his hat. He tapped his skull. "That should, yannoe… help. For any… yannoe."

"Thank you," she said, and the two words were suddenly very important to her. "Just… thank you, Scrapper."

They shook hands and he blushed to hear his name in her voice. A sudden giddiness overtaking her, Torque laughed again and shook his huge, callused hand a little harder, as though striking a true deal: one that he had earned in full.

She was on-board with no regrets and he was happy just to have her not screaming at him: she would profusely apologize for it later over broccoli florentine, only to have him shrug and look up at the ceiling with a shy and simple _das' okay_. She would feel her heart do a strange sort of flop but pay no attention, and then leave her prize lavender scarf in his car after an impromptu one-am movie and find herself smiling stupidly when he handed it back to her the next crisp winter morning on the corner of fifth and Alameda.

That smile would widen when, shuffling in front of each other in the cold busy intersection, they both suggest getting coffee at the same time. They would stare for a minute, then laugh into their collars. Huffing and puffing, he would make sure to get there first and hold the door open for her; she would buy his coffee, because no one had ever held a door open for her like that before.

With that one simple handshake in a back alley, Torque had no idea that she was agreeing to not just one date but twenty-seven dates, another tattoo on her butt, fifty years of marriage and one very, very large mastiff named Snarl—and even then, life had only just begun.


	26. The Eve Of

A/N: This lines up with Starry Night and that general time-period, so it's a pseudo-flashback.

Characters: Megatron, Starscream

Pairings: future Megatron/Starscream

Warnings: Language! Megatron's adorable allergy to new technology and Starscream being an insufferable brat as I so love him to beeeeee. Otherwise, just a strange, sad little moment where Starscream and Megatron aren't strangling each other.

* * *

The Eve Of

* * *

Late Christmas Eve found the President of D-Con industries cross-legged in a limo, frowning at a black, streamlined PDA as the car moved slowly through white-coated streets. The gadget was new, but by no means a Christmas present to himself. Learning how it worked was less of an excitement than a chore, and its very purchase more of a necessity than a joy.

In general, the older man plowed on as if unaware of the occasion of the date. He did not bother to look through the window to see the magical landscape of a city in joy. He had no need for the scenery of Detroit in the fervor of night-before purchases, the twinkling red lights and the white snow layered on slick, friendly architecture, nor the high-collared coats and the jingling persistence of joviality. The only way any of it mattered to him was that traffic was hell and the idiots causing it should have planned ahead to adequately provide for their families. The ride was silent, broken only by the negative-sounding beeps of the new tool that looked and felt so infuriatingly small in his big hands.

Fortunately or unfortunately, one stoplight lasted long enough that Megatron looked up, perhaps just to see how much worse it could get. As if in answer, the car line stretched endlessly on in front of him due to an accident—and he saw a young man with no coat slouched on a public bench.

His suit shirt was dusted with the powdery white snow falling in droves around him. He was obviously incredibly drunk and obviously out of place, the only motionless soul in a city of skipping mothers and shoppers. Detroit had no end of lunatics, but the moment the young man looked up and wiped his dark hair from his narrow, pale face, Megatron's gloved hand was on the door-handle and he sharply ordered the chauffer to a halt.

The long car crunched over the snow to the side of the row and Megatron exited amid a chorus of furious horn-honks from the surrounding cars, expression as cold as the compacted snow underneath his boots. The noise roused Starscream enough to make him look up at his boss for a moment, swaying gently back and forth with a baffled expression, before scrambling to his feet with a curse. He tried to stumble away, slipping pathetically in the snow, but his President grabbed him by the wrist without a word and manhandled him into the back of the limo, slamming the door after him.

Fuming and quite unaware of the perturbed stares of the Christmas shoppers who were suspecting (quite correctly) some kind of mafia abduction, Megatron opened the passenger side of the limo and ducked in.

"Lock the doors. Route change."

Ignoring his driver's equally stymied stare as the young captive shrieked in the back and yanked at the doorhandles, Megatron gave the man a new address. Then he simply sat back until he stepped on the gas and rejoined the slow, crunching crawl of snow-thick traffic.

A pity that the drive took so long: not only had traveling on the ground never appealed to the President, Starscream failed to shut up the entire way. Slurring his way further and further into the hole—nay, grave—that he had dug for himself, he huffed and snarled through the chaperone window that he was perfectly within his rights, that he was going to sue the old fool for this, that he was _only getting air_. Unfortunately, his boss was as observant as he was strict: Starscream was coatless and gloveless, miles from his apartment and miles from any club. It was in no way normal and even less acceptable.

The grey limo pulled up alongside Starscream's high-rise apartment, causing an immediate and curious rustling of the doorman; Megatron put out a staying hand before the driver veered into the orange-lit garage, then stepped out into a fresh flurry of white, overcoat whipping around his legs. Opening the door with a calmness that belied his next intention, he reached across the seat and grabbed Starscream by the arm again. After throwing a fit at being dragged out of the car and another, yet-noisier fit at being hauled up the stairs by his collar, Starscream made it an even three by screeching and clawing at the older man's hands when Megatron turned and stonily began to dig in the younger man's pockets for the keys to his apartment.

Once he retrieved them (with or without a few scratch-marks on his kid leather gloves), Megatron opened the door and pushed his Second in. Starscream almost toppled over but managed to catch himself on a fancy display table, leaning over it and breathing heavily into a full-wall mirror that only doubled his apparent intoxicated misery.

Megatron let his inferior's world spin for a moment more before unbuttoning his own overcoat and tossing it on the coatrack, eyes blazing.

"Public drunkenness is not acceptable."

Starscream turned, using the table as leverage, and glared in overwhelming fury at the older man standing in his entry hall, then shoved the table to the side. It hit with a metal-on-marble bang reminiscent of a gun-shot, scattering a bowl of fresh flowers between them.

"Fuck you!" he shouted, jabbing a sharp finger at his superior as though it would run him through. "Go away! Get out!"

Tossing furniture did not impress the President. Nor did profanity. Ignoring the mess, Megatron chased the young man into his own living room by mere presence. Hunching and clutching his head, Starscream stumbled and fell into an armchair, subdued for the time being. Half-satisfied, Megatron looked around and, as a man who had learned to always pay attention to his surroundings, found his first chance to see where Starscream lived.

The luxury apartment had the look of a spotless display-home that had been ripped to pieces in small, ugly places: show pillows were scattered from the bed while the comforter remained perfectly pressed, a chair overturned. One of the curtains was crumpled on the floor, the other crisp and clean. It smelled of artificial things like carpet cleaner: no human smells, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Starscream did not live there. He lived at the office, and it showed in his living room, his bedroom and, upon inspection, his spotless refrigerator.

"What the--_hell_ do you think you're doing?! I said get out! Now!"

"Take a shower," the older man ordered, peeling off his inner jacket and ignoring the fact that Starscream was on his feet again, looking ready to fight. "You're going to catch a cold."

All of the snow had melted on his inferior's shirt, leaving it sticking to his shoulders. He'd been out in the cold for lord knew how long, walking so many miles in the snow with no coat. He was almost assuredly sick already, and the warlord had no use for a sick man. Megatron was fed up with the young man's flagrant idiocy, true, but he also just felt the need to order someone around to fix the problem.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do!" Starscream exploded, shoving his soaking hair out of his eyes.

"Either you go of your own volition or I strip you and throw you in," Megatron growled, which shut Starscream's mouth rather quickly. The clash resulted in only a moment of livid glaring before the younger man (sizing up his 6'5" elder and Megatron's utterly prepared stance on the tile floor) stomped off in the direction of the bathroom. The shower ran for no more than five minutes but Starscream came out dripping, shirtless and tearing at his hair with a towel.

He stormed to his bedroom, scornfully and drunkenly ignoring the older man. PDA already in hand, Megatron followed. Once he realized that _leaving_ hadn't been his boss' side of the shower deal, Starscream snitched at him for a minute or two, ordering him to get out of his home, to do the world a favor and go kill himself—fairly ordinary play. But when Megatron took a step into his bedroom, Starscream bristled like a territorial hyena, grabbed up a vase and chucked it at him.

The pottery shattered against the wall behind him, a foot from the President's head. Megatron ducked that and two more expensive knickknacks, absolutely livid if just because of the violent sound and because he _knew_ Starscream would be idiotic enough to blame him for it later. At the first chance, he seized the younger man by the scruff of his neck mid-throw and bodily heaved him into his bed, roaring at him to stay still _for the love of God_.

Starscream, of course, did not comply. He threw a wordless tantrum to shame that of a spoilt three-year-old, complete with wrapping a pillow around his head, then went strangely quiet as if the lack of oxygen soothed him. Given a soft mattress and no more snow, all of his rage seemed to evacuate his skinny body in a split-second, leaving him in a deep, drunken stupor. At the first sign of true, blessed quietness, Megatron pulled up a chair.

He recovered his PDA from the pottery-strewn floor and, poking around only briefly to find the email function, ordered his chauffer to move on to his apartment: he had a business situation, no need to wait. The older man didn't know how long he was going to be there, but it wasn't proper to keep the man waiting. When he finished, there was a rustle from the bed. Starscream surfaced blearily from his pillow, then saw his superior and hissed as though realizing the nightmare he'd had a few minutes ago was reality.

"Don't you fucking have anything else better to fucking do?" he spat at length, wrestling the sheets over his head to shut out the other man's invasive, hated presence.

Megatron grimaced, mostly to himself. He never assumed Starscream would have such a filthy mouth when drunk, but then, intoxication meant there was no screening process for the vitriolic anger he so knew the boy possessed. Vulgar.

"Unfortunately, no," he drawled, then frowned as he realized the strangeness of his actions.

He should have just shoved the brat into his home and been done with it. Chasing him inside began as a foggy, over-controlling urge to make sure Starscream passed out before he could venture out again and sully the company's good name in the streets on Christmas Eve… but then the older man realized that he had done it because he had no other demands on his time. He truly had nothing better to do than sit with his drunk Second, whom he had never seen outside of a business setting.

He could go home and possibly read. Go over reports. All the meetings were done and the holiday parties would wait till January. There was no one to see and no one expecting him, as it had been for many, many years.

Possibly he wasn't the only one. Most had pictures in their living spaces: Starscream's was utterly bare, and the older man had seen his desk often enough to know that it was the same. He was well on his way to driving everyone out of his life in his quest to conquer—but it could hardly be considered a life if one failed to live it. It was strange to see the home of a man already obsessed, living a stark lifestyle at the painfully young age of 28 when he should be out, partaking in parties and hobbies and people. The stylish apartment echoed, empty, in the same manner the 750ml bottle of vodka on the bedside table did.

"I know why," Starscream slurred slyly. He surfaced only to smirk at his President, dark, drunk eyes devious. "You're alone."

"As are you," the older man replied calmly, glancing over at the tangle of sheets and ruffled hair. "You learn quickly that a life of business—a life at the top--is not conducive to having a coffer overflowing with companions. It is the nature of commerce."

Starscream stared then huffed himself back into his pillow, put out at having his ugly little epiphany stolen. Solitude had been a reality to the older man for a decade and found him no less capable. Megatron chased an icon around with his stylus for a moment, then glanced up again.

"For someone with such an extended family, you do not seem to be… caught up in the holiday spirit."

A jab, of course: the President knew that Christmas dinner with the Seeker family would be the tensest event since negotiating the Iranian hostage crisis. Starscream rolled over defiantly, not even honoring him with a perfunctory snark. Megatron wondered briefly if the parents even cared enough to round up their children for such an event, or if they did it solely for the appearance. Surely swanky Christmas parties were their forte—he had attended a few--and it always looked better to have all of ones' children in tow. The warlord knew about the magic of appearances.

"Why don't you just give up already?"

Megatron blinked and looked up. Starscream's naked back was to him, but the tone alone told him the younger man's expression was anything but pleasant. He had to think a moment to understand what his Second was referring to: he had nothing to gain by staying here with the younger man, but at large? In the realm they most often functioned and fought in, with the disgust in his voice and the fearlessness gifted by alcohol?

"I might ask you the same," he replied softly. Starscream snorted.

"I'm younger than you, I'm smarter than you and I will win."

An odd silence followed the announcement, broken only by electronic blips.

It was something that was always implicit between them but had never been said aloud. It sounded overall to simple to be threatening, even as it was the idea that fueled countless destructive schemes. It didn't even matter, considering the drained bottle of vodka on the side table: there was a very high chance the brat wouldn't remember any of it the next day. For a moment, however, Megatron understood Starscream's relentless, self-destructive push towards conquest—because the only thing more terrifying than failure was having nothing to return to if you did.

The President tooled once again with his PDA in the ensuing quiet, trying to access something from his pre-downloaded schedule but hitting a dead-end. The trio of disappointed-sounding beeps repeated nine times before Starscream finally rolled over with a vexed-sounding snarl.

"Give me that, you _idiot_." Before Megatron could react, Starscream lurched forward and grabbed the tiny black pod from him. He squinted at the display screen then used his sharp, manicured fingernails in place of a stylus, incredibly coordinated for his blood-alcohol content. "You have it saved as a read-only file so it's overriding your delete command in the action relay."

He pressed a few buttons, coaxing a chorus of agreeable noises out of the small machine, then tossed it back to the older man, falling back with a faint groan borne mostly of overwhelming irritation for the old fool who not only had no sense but simply _wouldn't leave him alone_.

Megatron simply raised his brow, unable to help but marvel at how Starscream got him exactly where he wanted to go with something he had been wrestling with all day. The young man, regardless of his hatred and his ambition, had an impeccable attunement for his needs and really was horribly intelligent and efficient. The warlord could only assume that Starscream was too tired to attempt to fight him at the moment and his only other habit (besides ingrained treachery) was a well-trained servitude.

"Ridiculous," Starscream whined, dripping condescension. "You run a multi-billion dollar business and you don't even know how to use a PDA."

"Would you prefer I learn how to use my PDA and fire you?" Megatron asked, frowning as he felt further into the web of possible functions and managed to rearrange some of his schedule. He arched his brow again as a tiny option screen popped up, telling him about a complicated function he had no use for.

"As if that's all you need me for," Starscream slurred into his sheets, voice faint now.

"I could make much better use of you, if only you allowed me to."

Starscream gave no sign that he heard; his breathing was finally steadying out into a deep, deep sleep befitting 10pm on a snowy night. Their conversation, however strange and brutally honest and nonexistent, was over. With a few more swipes of his stylus, the President's schedule for the next week was complete.

There was a blank spot on December the 25th; he shut off the PDA to get rid of it. Functionally alone in the apartment, Megatron looked outside for the first time. He watched the white snow rush against the cold black window, unrelieved by the glow of little red lights, then looked down at his associate passed out in his bed.

Due to this unprofessional moment, complete misunderstanding between the two men was now impossible; perhaps, even, they were more alike than Megatron had ever suspected, cast from the same molds but with different flaws. At last, the President rose and left his Second to face Christmas hung-over and alone while he went down to hail a taxi in the white-grey slush of Detroit, expecting little better for himself.

Such was the nature of business, uncaring of strife, holidays or the humans that fought to feed it and ended up sacrificing themselves in the process.


	27. Recovery

A/N: Yannoe, I continually baffle myself with my dumb aptitude for double-meaning'd titles. WOAH.

Aaaaaand don't worry. If I'm insane enough to do what I think I'm going to do (ohgodohgodohgod WILL IT NEVER END), this won't be the last you see of the pairing in question.

_Characters: Blurr, Bumblebee, Sari, Longarm_

_Pairings: Sari/Bee_

_Warnings: none except dramatic irony XD Oh such dramatic irony. And canon-nod irony. OH GOD IT KILLS. Crap, Blurr stop being so helpless and cute and besotted._

* * *

Recovery

* * *

The oxygen tank hissed in, out, in, out.

Bee sat in the guest's chair in room 32 at the Detroit hospital, head hanging. He had been sitting in the same position for over an hour, and had been in the hospital room a total of seven hours divided over the past two days. Nurses and doctors milled around him, visiting any one of the room's six patients and not bothering with the kid with the yellow hoodie in the corner. Bumblebee only moved to peel off the yellow beanie on his head and scrub at the blond mess underneath; he couldn't help but take the smell of the hospital home with him, which only made him think of Blurr more than he already did.

Blurr only woke up for little stretches. They'd fixed something called a subdural hematoma in his brain (one of those 'you're lucky you got him here so fast' problems that only made Bee's stomach twist horribly) and now he had stitches along his skull where they'd punched a hole in it to keep him from dying. When the skinny boy was awake, Bee tried to make him feel the prickly little threads sticking out of his head, or tease him about how they'd shaved him to get at it, but Blurr just puffed and failed to smile and lay back down like his bones were too heavy to lift. He talked slow, he moved slow, he breathed slow. Too soon, Bee was badgering him just to get a reaction, a classic split-second, eager Blurr reaction (would he ever be able to run again? He was fuzzy, disjointed--was this permanent?), and the nurses gave him such a hard look that he retreated to the chairs not too close to the bed.

Somewhere around three in the afternoon, the door to the ward opened. Bee looked up, expecting a nurse, and saw Sari.

He instantly looked away even when she saw him, stomach tightening in a dizzying way. He glowered at the floor, hands white on his knees. Too soon she was filling his periphery, green sweater-dress hanging down to her knees.

"Is he okay?"

"Why don't you ask the doctors?" he said coldly, ears already pink. She looked at him, hurt or startled, then nodded.

She wasn't there to see Blurr being dragged in by the agent-guy, bleeding all over his face and his matted-up hair. She didn't know. It was no fault of her own, but he still found a way to hold it against her.

Bee lifted his head a fraction and watched her through hurt-sharpened eyes as she approached the doctors. They jumped to see the Sumdac heir in their building, then nodded and shook their heads, gesturing back and forth. Sari finally looked back with a sad expression, then drifted back to Bee's side.

"They said he'll probably be back on his feet in the next week," she murmured, like he didn't already know. She sat down. He didn't look at her. "I'm… sorry I didn't come sooner. I didn't hear until ten minutes ago."

A long silence stretched between them, where Sari knit her hands over her knees and stared at the floor, not understanding that the only thing Bee wanted her to do was leave. Even as his eyes were locked on the tile floor, his throat still tightened when she turned her head and just looked at him for the longest time, radiating everything he'd convinced himself she didn't have for him: concern, compassion, love.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

He wanted to say _no_ like he'd always planned, and have it only apply to her—because when she left him, she took something with her. It sapped the luster from his video games, his movies, and his shallow, stupid little life. When she trotted out, all she left him with was bad grades and seven dollars an hour, which had never bothered him before and _that_ was the part that killed him. She'd changed something and didn't even have the heart to put him back the way she found him, ignorant and happy.

If he was miserable, it was her fault, he wanted to say. But with Blurr knocked out with an oxygen mask over his face, it wasn't so. The hospital stank. The bulky apparatus hissed every so often, a constant reminder; his best friend lay perfectly still, stiller than he'd ever been, for hours on end, skinny frame sinking further into the bed with the weight of something so much bigger than himself.

Bee wanted to make it simple—simple like it was before, zombie movies and milkshakes and quick and easy grudges--but he just ended up shaking his head and felt something splinter when Sari put a hand on his back. After a moment, she bent awkwardly to try and hold him as he crouched over his knees. Her soft cheek lay on his shoulder and her smell was back again, soft and girlish and he remembered (through weeks of trying not to) how much he had missed her. Her skeptical looks, the way she wove his shoelaces into horrible webs when she was bored, then laid her head on his knee and sighed like there was no other place she would rather be. Something in the very center of his chest tightened and he felt like he was going to throw up as he started shaking. So, unlike every time he imagined it, he didn't try to talk.

Bumblebee clutched her small mocha hand in his and she squeezed him tighter, and they sat there for minutes and minutes until the pressure bled from his chest, leaving him exhausted in her arms.

"I miss you," she whispered at last, and it was all he could do just to nod his head. If he said anything, he would trail off halfway through and just kiss her, but even he wasn't dumb enough for that. Stupid, jealous, hurt Bee knew what that careful _I miss you_ meant and he finally accepted it—and the evolution ahead--with a thick breath.

"I don't want to stop talking just because we aren't…" Sari trailed off, voice tightening as Bee hunched a little lower. Her fingers skirted over the back of his blond-fuzzed neck, then stilled too quickly. "You know."

"I know," he managed, unable to help nosing into her dark red hair. He knew he would never be allowed this close again, where they were going, so he soaked her in like the warm-skinned sunshine she was. Her cheek was very close, close enough to kiss (one last chance to prove that he could be nice, he could be mature, he could be whatever it was he'd been too freaked out to hear when she put the car in park and wouldn't meet his eyes), but he just sat and let it be.

Finally, with a sniff, Bee made himself sit upright. Her arm slid off of his back and he wiped at his face. It was a second before he realized there were dark splotches on the shoulder of his hoodie. He looked past them to see Sari with wet eyes and a weak smile, looking just the way he felt.

He sniffed; she sniffed. Then he sniffed twice, just to one-up her. Suddenly, both of them grinned weakly and some sort of clammy feeling dissolved between them. Carefully, they wrapped themselves in each other one last time, chest-to-chest, and parted when it felt okay.

Not right—not yet, and certainly not for a while—but okay.

The door opened behind the two of them and they turned, arms falling to their sides. The man who entered was neither a doctor nor a nurse, and actually pushed his ice-blue glasses up his nose with a worried expression at the sight of them. He immediately pushed a hand through his choppy blond hair, backing up a step.

"Sorry, am I…?"

It was the agent. Longarm.

He stood in front of the two staring teens for a second, half-hesitant and half-expectant. Then, as if to duck from his presumed interruption, the older man, dressed in his habitual grey and teal sweatsuit, found the nearest nurse and exchanged a brief word with her. Sari looked at the new man in confusion, but Bee instinctively scowled at his back. Bee never expected to see him outside of the station—and somehow, the image of him carrying a totally broken Blurr into the station with no clear idea what broke him… it didn't sit well with the teen. Somehow, he didn't quite want the man around his best friend.

After a small amount of talk, Longarm ended up pulling a chair up to the bed that held the sleeping sprinter. A few soft taps to Blurr's horribly skinny, catheter-strung arm and the teen stirred. It took him a moment to open his eyes, but once he saw the man leaning over his bedside, they were _open_. He struggled to sit up a little more, pushing the oxygen mask to his pale face.

"Hey," Blurr whispered as loudly as he could. It took everything out of him: no matter how hard he tried, his eyelids flickered. Longarm smiled.

"How you doing, kid?"

(An eye the same hue as the glasses that hid it flickered briefly over to the boy with the yellow hoodie, who leaned forward with a guarded frown as soon as) Longarm dropped his voice.

"They treating you okay in here?"

Blurr only nodded, the very motion requiring more than his spine had; Longarm looked down to see the teen's numb fingers curled in his grey hoodie sleeve and covered them with his own. Blurr looked down as if surprised to see it, then smiled blankly up at his hero, painstakingly restricting any movement so he'd be able to hang onto consciousness longer.

"I talked to your parents. Told them I would come to see you. They said it'd be okay if I brought you something." Longarm reached into his bag as though to fetch that same something, then stopped as if he didn't see Blurr immediately straighten, vibrating weakly with interest. He looked up, face doubtful. "That's okay with you too, right?"

Blurr's expression, though strangely crunched on one side, clearly communicated that _yes_ it was _quite_ okay with him. Longarm chuckled some at the boy's piteously wide blue eyes and finished fishing around. When he surfaced, a glossy aqua car sat in his palm, black wheels glistening like a wet road.

For a moment, Blurr did nothing but stare. When he reached forward, he took the model car out of the older man's hand as though it were a living thing, then smiled. It was a concept piece, with great stylish body-side molding and a vintage speedster feel. He held it up so he could see his reflection in the black windshield, trying, as he always did, to see the meticulous detail of the dashboard and the seats beyond it. Trying to place himself in it, going at the speed of light.

"I heard you collect model cars," the blond man said with a certain satisfaction. He reached forward and spun one of the back wheels with a flick of his finger, lopsided smile growing. "What kind is your favorite?"

"Doesn't… matter. So long… as… theygofast," Blurr said. He bent to run his fingers over the beautiful sports car in his lap before looking up shyly. "Th… anks."

"Sure thing, kid. Now I gotta go--you just get to feeling better. And hey."

Longarm rose from the chair and inclined his head as if winking. He gave the young teen an encouraging, handsome smile and a small salute as he reached down and slung his bag over his broad shoulder.

"Remember your promise."

Bee and Sari received a small wave on the way out as well. The instant Longarm was out of the room, however, Bumblebee got an awful taste in his mouth: some product of the meekly-smiling man and Blurr's numb clutch for him and the toy. Even though he didn't hear any of the words, he could tell Longarm had been talking to his friend like he was four. Blurr wasn't four. Pricked, he got up and went to the side of Blurr's bed, catching the teen before his eyes shut again. Sari was right behind him, looking over his shoulder uncomprehendingly.

"Hey," Bee said tensely, giving the boy a poke. Roused, Blurr only stared dreamily at his dark frown, fingers laced over the car. His older friend had to lean in to avoid the warning stare of a nearby nurse, lowering his voice. "What'd that guy say to you? What kind of promise was he talking about?"

Blurr just smiled and leaned back with the toy over his heart, managing to put one white finger to his plastic-shielded lips before he stopped moving entirely. The oxygen tank hissed in, out, in, out and the hospital room was silent.

* * *

Detroit seemed excruciatingly noisy after the respectful, if unnerving, silence of the hospital room. Sari and Bumblebee worked their way down the sidewalk towards Sumdac tower, which rose up into the air only a few blocks away. They mostly walked in silence, kicking the occasional pebble or cigarette package to the curb as their thoughts circled round and round.

"I don't like that guy."

Bee looked up from guesstimating how long he had left on his parking meter back at the hospital and arched an eyebrow. He looked at Sari's frown for a moment before realizing what she was talking about. The agent. A slight chill returned to his gut and he tugged his hoodie further over his head.

"You, too?"

"I don't know what it is," she murmured to herself, searching inwardly. It wasn't as if nice adults didn't exist, after all, or wouldn't take time out of their day to bring a bed-ridden boy a toy. It took a moment or two of hard staring at the sidewalk before she snapped and flipped her hair out of her face. "He's like… he's almost like that man who made the deal with dad."

"What man?" Bumblebee asked, scooting a step closer to her.

What man? She couldn't forget him if she tried—and neither could her dad.

He had had the most amazing silver hair and the biggest hands in the world. Most of all, he was polite, charming, and had bent to take her hand and tell her she looked lovely in orange silk, but he still creeped the hell out of her. He left her meticulously curled hair frizzling and her stomach tight—he left her wanting to _run_.

He was disconnected. There was something vibrating under his skin, something bad. She told all of this to her dad in a hushed tone behind the display table at the fancy place they met to close the deal, but the tiny man only waved her away in a nervous way that said that she hadn't been the only one to feel that something wasn't quite right with him. A teenager's intuition wasn't anything in the face of a legal contract, but maybe it was just the knowledge he ran a multi-billion dollar company that did just what Sumdac Inc swore never to: produce war machines. Sari saw the way her father winced when he reached up to take the big man's hand, for the final shake and the flash of cameras.

She tried to talk to him afterwards, but he was choked up about the deal in the first place, so it didn't go far. He was worried about loopholes in the contract they'd set. He'd spent at least ten sleepless nights going over everything with a fine-toothed comb, making sure… what was it, D-Con Industries couldn't access anything they weren't supposed to. But what in the world could they want that they couldn't ask for in print, and why was her dad so worried about it?

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't notice where she was until she was on the front steps of the Tower with her nose against the glass. She stepped back, startled, and looked up at the huge structure piercing the sky above her. After a minute, she sighed.

"Guess that's that," she said to herself, not realizing how ugly the sentence might have sounded to the boy—ex-boyfriend, emphasis on _friend_—next to her until it was too late. She bit her lip. It was going to be soft treading for a while. Bee either didn't hear her or chose not to react—or maybe wasn't as sensitive as she thought.

"Okay. I'll walk back to the hospital. I've gotta… y'know. Go to work in an hour."

"Okay. That… sounds good."

She looked back and flashed him a numb sort of smile. She had started digging in her pocket for her swipe key—it was Saturday, the place was closed—when Bee's footsteps, barely started, stopped behind her.

"Hey, Sari."

Hands frozen in her pockets, she turned, suddenly a little frightened. Bumblebee was half off the curb, eyes locked on her shoes.

"I'll see you later," he said, then blew a little air into his collar, rubbing his hands against the cold January day. "Right?"

"Definitely," she answered after a soft moment, plucking self-consciously at her pigtail. After a second, Bee nodded, then they both smiled and went their separate ways—but with a promise that they would always come back to one another. Anything else wouldn't be right.


	28. Pursuit

A/N: MY GOD. THEIR RELATIONSHIP. WHAT IS IT. I love them. I love them so much. Ffff such a joy writing Megs here. He can charm the pants off of me any day (so long as he finishes the job :] )

Megatron and Starscream now have an entire folder devoted to them on my hard-drive: LET THE AWESOME BEGIN.

_Characters: Megatron, Starscream, scattered Seeker Brood_

_Pairings: Megatron/Starscream FINALLY LEGIT YESSSS  
_

_Warnings: For any of you that know the Fisher tower intimately, lo siento, but it's probably undergone a few renovations as of 2053. Also, the shrimp scene is absolutely stolen from the lovely Black-Panda-Chan (with horrible non-sexy changes I'M SO SORRY I'm utterly lame), as is the idea of Dai Atlas' cameo. Thank you darlin!_

* * *

Pursuit

* * *

Every day, Saturday and Sunday included, was a business day when you worked at a company as prestigious and implicitly evil as D-Con industries.

Evil was hard work. Evil didn't stop, or take coffee breaks—well, Skywarp did at least fourteen times a day, but that was mostly to escape from whatever version of intimidation hell his older (by three seconds) triplet was forcing on him Monday through Friday. It also gave him the great excuse to make double the bathroom breaks, which put him in his chair a rough three out of every four work hours. (That all stopped when he was found in a bathroom stall with his laptop and a pile of paperwork, looking mightily put out at having his hiding place exposed; Thundercracker sneered at him for weeks afterward and Shockwave had to issue a new company statement including 'swirlies' as a form of work-place harassment.)

Exceptions aside, D-Con industries was a lot of work and very little play. Though the work was intensive and ceaseless, there were a few events to mark the year by: one was the Midwinter Gala, during which their respectable President straightened his tie, swept all of their dirty business under the carpet and put up a few modest cover operations. He then ordered a thousand _hors devours_ and one hundred bottles of rich wine and spent all night schmoozing up to loaded old women and blind geezers in the glamorous Fisher building of Detroit, hoping for a million or two to go towards his newest escapade.

Starscream _hated_ the Midwinter Gala.

He could get that kind of pompous assholery at any dinner at his father's estate any day of the week. The gala, besides being a pretentious title for a stretch of drunken panhandling and karat contests, was a five-hour waste of his life. He couldn't even use the event to forge connections for later use (although so many elitist fools just _loved_ to shake his hand and ask him how his dear mother was doing) because the guests were already sprawled at Megatron's feet. They panned for his favor just as much for as he did for theirs. The only difference was, they paid dearly for his esteem, up to six and seven digits for a smile and a handshake, and he merely accepted theirs with a nod, filing their surname away for later use.

To make matters worse, Starscream's official designation during any large public event was that of the straight-backed, nodding second, not too quiet but not too out-spoken and _so very_ loyal.

He was implicitly banned from spouting anything but pro-company propaganda and explicitly banned from speaking to high-priority investors. This, of course, did not pan out. Unfortunately for Megatron (and more unfortunately for Starscream when his employer managed to get him by the neck afterwards), the arrogant young man had never been any good at remaining quiet and subservient in the grey middle-ground. He demanded center stage. He could get away with it in larger arenas, but with Megatron around every corner in the ballroom level of the prestigious Fisher building, he wasn't even allowed to be overly _charming_ for fear of taking the gleam away from the old man's fox smile.

After weeks of anticipation and exasperation, the morning of January the twenty-third finally arrived. The gala was that very evening, and while four-star chefs and waiters were scrambling to prepare for what was known as the 'highbrow highlight' of the Detroit winter, Starscream was currently huddled under the tangled sheets of his bed, loathe to face the Saturday daylight and the obsequiousness that night would bring.

He finally worked himself to the edge of his bed and sat there for near to half an hour, only to rise and spend the rest of the morning moping around his empty apartment, sighing and hissing at random intervals and refusing to put on clothes. Around noon, someone rang his doorbell, which only enraged him further. Seething, Starscream yanked on pants and answered the door.

A costumed bellhop with a long white package stood dead-center in his doorframe, looking like a pudgy toy soldier with a Christmas present. They were often used as errand-boys when required. Starscream glared at the young man until he began to stutter, presumably to recite some sort of pre-scripted message. After a moment, he finally eked out a sentence.

"He s-says you're supposed to wear this."

"_He_?" Starscream demanded, dark eyes narrowing with a horrible immediacy.

The Seeker was suddenly all venom as he snatched the package away from the pimply creature, who flinched away and hid his hands in his pockets. Uncaring of his half-nakedness or the nervous knock of the bellhop's knees, it took Starscream no more than a snap of twine and an impatient rustle of florid white tissue paper to decipher the male pronoun and the contents alike.

Inside the white box was a suit. A beautiful suit. He had some like it, but none so high-quality. None so timeless, so powerfully tasteful. Though he had not put it on yet, he could tell at a glance that the measurements were correct down to the inseam and the source, therefore, was obvious. Horribly, infuriatingly obvious.

"The man who ordered me to wear this," the businessman grit out at last, lip curling. "Red tie. Silver hair. Old as sin. Disgustingly smug expression."

The boy looked to both sides then nodded, still terrified. Starscream glared at the blank tag for a moment—the same moment it took him to imagine the pompousness with which the corporate giant had tossed the package over to the clueless little brat with no explanation--then slammed the door in the boy's face. His mood, already fouled, only increased tenfold when he flung the box onto his bed and rifled around in the tissue-paper maelstrom and found not only a full set of dress-clothes (all the way down to _garters_ for his _high black socks_, the doddering old fool) but boots.

Not just any boots, however. Purple leather boots with narrow heels so exaggerated it was as though the other man had stolen them from a hooker on the way there and threw them in as a cruel joke. Regardless of the Seeker's penchant for an added inch (or three), he _did not wear high heels_.

Storming to the other side of the room, Starscream chucked them out the window and was furious when there was no smash or tinkling of glass. He then stomped into the shower, thoroughly ready to spit in as many wineglasses as he could that night: he would ruin D-Con industries forever if it would kill Megatron by way of heart attack.

Still, as he soaped up and generally became outrageously beautiful for the approaching gala, he couldn't help but think about how much the suit cost and why Megatron had given it to him… assuming, of course, he wasn't going to send the same boy to take it back the next day. Instantly, Starscream killed the idea. That was a level of tackiness that his boss couldn't manage. Megatron could smuggle weapons and lie his face off and ruin hundreds of lives with a single signature, but he couldn't do something that was in bad taste, like taking back a beautiful hand-tailored suit, no matter how much it would enrage his second.

That left Starscream with limited options. The cost of the suit… a snide comparison of monetary means? Megatron had never stooped to showing off his wealth before, so why start now?

He wracked his brain, but no answer. He prided himself on understanding the old warlord's mind better than anyone, so this left him with a sense of intense confusion-- which only made him remember what had occurred only the night before, in the half-dark of his _personal_ office, before he had left the building.

_The knock was strong but measured, and Starscream snapped 'come in' without even raising his head. The knock, however, was strange. If anybody entered his office, it was to deposit papers and give updates, not make conversation. The men and women who peopled the stark purple high-rise were creatures of callous efficiency, united only towards a common goal: who the hell bothered with that kind of courtesy?_

_His answer, much abhorred, was Megatron._

_The President stood in his door, already clothed in a thick gray trench-coat to guard against the falling snow outside and a wool jacket underneath, looking unspeakably fashionable and twice as smug. That damn _presence_ was at an all-time high, practically radiating from the noble-looking entrepreneur in confident, masculine waves._

_Starscream froze instinctively, then simply stayed seated, wordlessly and arrogantly tidying up his desk as the older man wandered over to a potted plant and began to speak. Almost in the thought-train of 'ignore it and it will go away', Starscream did not pay much attention, focusing instead on organizing the last of his files with a fearsome frown. This 'conversation' was after hours, and therefore not his concern as an employee. He did, however, catch a lot of nonsense about dining at the Coach Insignia and did not fail to look up when there was a tinkle of keys directly on the other side of his desk. He found Megatron standing on the side of his desk, keys to his fancy car in his big, gloved hand._

"_You may accompany me, if you so desire."_

_Once more, Starscream froze. The words simply did not add up, especially with Megatron's expectant expression. Accompany him where: out the door and into the freezing subterranean garage? Or beyond, to dinner? Starscream stared at the older man, who was fixing him with an almost pleasant smile that was disturbing in its constancy. He failed even to react to Starscream's utterly hideous 'what the fuck' face. _

"_I've already eaten," the younger man muttered at last, which was an utter lie. He was starving. His stomach had been clawing at him for hours and his first stop was a three-star restaurant—or hell, even a truckstop if it was closer. He needed food._

So, why didn't he want to go with the man when it was both immediate access to food and a perfect chance to squirm closer? Unfortunately, Starscream had had quite enough of his employer during the week and had long-since realized that any amount of obsequiousness would not spare him from running errands for the damn gala like he was some sort of intern. Kissing up, most did not realize, was soul-sucking and he couldn't stand another minute of it that cold evening, much less under the oppressive presence of his boss.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of it.

"I appreciate the offer, but I trust you will enjoy yourself if left to your own devices."

"_The wine there is best taken with a full stomach, in my opinion," the older man offered warmly. He blocked the right side of his Second's desk and thus his exit, which did not escape Starscream's notice any more than the President's buttery demeanor did. Megatron arched a brow. "Surely you wouldn't object to relaxing with a bottle of Bordeaux after such a difficult week."_

_It was a statement, not a question. Nonetheless, disbelief turned Starscream's insides to stone: what was this farce?_

_He clearly remembered the man's iron grip locked in the front of his shirt little more than a week ago, pupils dilated with rage as the President threatened to throw him out the window for something he shouldn't have done…or rather, some little bit of thievery he shouldn't have been so obvious about. Now, the man was smiling and making dinner plans. This moment, this offer, this _concept_, it was preposterous. As much as Starscream prided himself on acting, this switching of the tables—Megatron half-bowing to him with a deeper purpose instead of the other way around—made him unaccountably nervous and irritated and thoroughly desperate to escape his tiny office._

_The Seeker did not attempt another excuse, but simply buttoned his grey-lavender overcoat, slammed his desk drawer and pushed past the President with his head bowed low. Shoes click-click-clicking, he moved quickly and hoped to god he wouldn't be followed, chased faster by ridiculous but nonetheless horrifying flashes of his employer ambushing and stabbing him to death in the dark of the garage, finally insane. That night, he locked his door and even then had trouble sleeping._

Unfortunately, the dinner offer had been but the crowning event of a week super-saturated with the same strangeness.

Despite sending him on idiotic errands, his superior had not given him a hard word the whole week, nor accepted his proposals or reports with anything but a pleased nod. It was strange conduct from the man who made a hobby of crushing his ambitions and doubly unsettling for the hard-headed young man who had made some sort of compulsive ego-sport out of provoking Megatron again and again. Of course, despite a rousing combination of mutual hatred and stamina, the two men couldn't manage to be at each other's throats constantly due to the sheer amount of time they spent in one another's presence, but a five-day stretch of placidness was absolutely uncalled for.

Megatron's quietness and cordiality left Starscream with the feeling he should be tip-toeing down hallways and looking into rooms before he entered, and the offer to dine together made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. There was something… insidious about kindness coming from the older man, much less common regard or even a lack of suspicion and disgust. The entire thing confused him, and Megatron's last response confused him even further: he hadn't seemed particularly angry at the dinner refusal, and only made sure they knocked shoulders when his inferior pushed past him.

And if it wasn't about business or further discussion of plans or even a maddening 'gala behavior' detail that Megatron had been waiting to lecture him over… it had simply been a dinner offer. An optional dinner offer. Starscream hadn't realized that 'optional' was even in his President's vocabulary. Since when did choice matter in anything the old warlord wanted?

Two hours later, the middle-most Seeker child exited his suite at a huffy pace with a beautiful charcoal silk suit and his mind in knots, frown set in plaster on his face. His determination to sabotage the Megatron's life work only doubled when the keeper of his luxury apartment complex stopped him before he went out, saying there was a man waiting for him in a very fancy car.

It wasn't Megatron; otherwise, Starscream would have appeared at the gala and assumed the position of President with a smile on his face and fresh blood on his hands. After a brief and snappy interrogation of the driver, however, it became clear that his superior was hell-bent on assuring he went to the party—so much so that he sent a beautiful car (with an admittedly beautiful driver) to pick him up and ferry him there.

The car he sent was beyond gorgeous and a chauffeur was a rarity. It was doubly pleasant to be saved the crunch through Detroit traffic, but that didn't matter. It was just another charming way for Megatron to keep an eye on him, just like the suit was a pleasant-snide way of saying he couldn't dress himself properly. Even as he slammed the door shut and unnecessarily ordered the driver to get going, Starscream wouldn't be fooled. That man gave nothing for free.

Now, as always, he just had to discover what Megatron wanted and find a way to deny him with a smile.

* * *

The Fisher building was a 30-story tower with an opulent three-story barrel vaulted lobby constructed with forty different kinds of marble. It held an elegant antique theater that was once decorated in a lavish Aztec theme, including Mayan art and live macaws rustling around their banana-tree homes for guests to feed, but now was a much more demure 2,000 seat theater with classic red carpeting.

It was out of this elegant theater that a hundred equally elegant guests came meandering, arguing pleasantly over the quality of the surprise Broadway performance of Metaliche. The show had been a special thank-you from the President, for honoring him with their individual presence. Each guest had received nothing more than an entrance ticket with their invitation, instructing them to enter the building two hours before the gala was to begin, and now began to populate the marble dance floor in a perfectly agreeable mood.

One or two million would be party favors at this point, to repay a man so kind, so ingenious. The same kind genius was currently schmoozing shamelessly with a local baroness, his strong hand on her arm and Starscream's narrowed eyes locked on his back.

It was astounding, how women _failed_ to _notice_. The confident, charming wryness of mature homosexuality was simply so attractive to them… and Megatron certainly was playing his part. Starscream sneered into his glass as the older man leaned into the thick-set woman's confidence with an unassuming smile, then chuckled deeply at a joke, hand resettling on her gloved hamhock arm with a certain relishing fondness. The President could broadcast all the aura of an intimate conversation by mere presence, making the baroness purr even as he dominated her under her very nose. But then, women at that level _craved_ to be dominated, to remove the worrisome weight of money and be content that their investment _would be well-handled, madam, I give you my honor_.

Starscream's white wine soured in his mouth as he reached for another flamboyant little speck of food at the buffet. Some honor—some _promise_. Every guest was an idiot if they believed the old fox for a moment… more their fortune, he supposed sourly, that Detroit should be populated with imbeciles willing to fund their illegal expeditions.

They were only an hour in and it had already been a long night. Starscream's brothers and sole sister were milling around, being their despicable and socially-questionable selves and generally trying to avoid their parents, who were also invited that year. Starscream strongly suspected it was for the sole purpose of keeping the brood in line and could, sadly, see the logic in it. Skywarp could often be seen not-quite-sprinting from one end of the hall to the other, doubtlessly after Thundercracker pretended he saw Mother and sent his younger brother running for a laugh.

Megatron moved on from his first target to speak with a middle-aged Japanese man, shaking his hand and returning the clipped bow the other man gave him. Starscream was close enough to hear him inquire 'where his lovely wife was' and see the businessman dismiss the question with a brief gesture. That was as much as he could catch before he was abruptly dragged out of eavesdropping and down to Skywarp, who had appeared at his side, crouched and tugging at his sleeve.

"Um, Starscream. _S-starscream_."

"Get off," Starscream ordered scornfully, returning his attention to Megatron.

The _much_ younger triplet (by nine seconds) and his exaggerated whisper did nothing but infuriate him in the best of circumstances, and the coward was most certainly not going to use him to hide from Thundercracker. Starscream's lip curled as another woman interrupted his President's conversation and the older man affected utter pleasure at seeing her again. He took her gloved hand and pressed his lips to it and smiled up at her, resulting in a profound and violent flipping of Starscream's stomach. How on earth could he stand to be so theatric, so unforgivably disgusting?

The woman absolutely _swooned_. Starscream's gut viciously completed the 180, with an added dash of seething hatred. Damn him. Damn him to _hell_.

"Starscream," Skywarp tried again, voice a notch higher and twice as shaky. Again came the tugging on his sleeve, _again_ the sniveling intake of breath. "Th-that's pate."

Starscream broke from gnawing at his lip to sneer down his nose at the other Seeker. He took another bite of the pate hors devour in his hand, patience evaporating.

"I know what it is! What are you blathering about?" he growled, downing the last of his wine to wash it down. He returned to chewing on his lip, which he realized was vaguely itchy. Skywarp shrunk even further, gulping for time as though afraid to incur Starscream's wrath by answering his question honestly, which happened a lot more often than one would think. At last, the younger triplet pointed at his brother's face, wincing.

"That pate has… um, sh-shrimp in it?"

Starscream's eyes went wide. The finger pointing at his face suddenly made him aware of his lip, which his teeth were still sunk into. Because his lip _itched_. The Seeker dropped the paste-smeared cracker fragment and clapped his hand over his mouth, which was something like trying to restrain two engorged hotdogs, one of which had been gnawed to pieces.

Among his incredibly long and fussy list of allergens, on which stood cats and pollen and dust and people who wouldn't take social cues, was shrimp. But shrimp was different. Shrimp made him swell and break out in hives and wheeze and look absolutely hideous.

Shrimp, therefore, made Starscream the Second abandon his wineglass and sprint to the bathroom with his hands over his face, beautiful suit-jacket flapping behind him. Megatron caught the tail-end of his retreat when he turned around, one thick brow creeping up bemusedly, waiting only a moment before excusing himself from his current entanglement.

One flap of a bathroom door later, Starscream was properly locked in a stall and hissing into his cell-phone, slurring because of his swollen lips. He had already tried splashing cold water on his reddening face, which had only succeeded in getting the front of his dress shirt very wet.

"You need to get some! I don't care if the idiot will fire you, I don't care mother is blocking the fucking door with her foot, you _will_ go to the nearest store and get some emergency anti-histamine! Quit—shut up and stop whining! I'm going to die if you don't!"

Yes, he was melodramatic, but no, it was _not_ uncalled for. This had to be fixed. He couldn't allow anyone to see him like this, much less his own mother—much less Megatron! He was _hideous_, both lips pink and shiny and distended like rubber hoses.

Skywarp whimpered on the other line about not being able to find any, and he didn't know where the nurse's office was and he didn't have a license and Starscream _knew_ that, and so forth. He probably continued whining, but was abruptly hung up on when the door to the bathroom opened and someone cleared their throat.

Starscream immediately pulled his feet up, which left him crouching on the lidded toilet like some kind of 3rd grader, clutching his phone to his chest. The young businessman's skin prickled when the man walked slowly up to the line of stalls, turning on his heel to look left and right. He tapped his foot.

"Starscream."

Starscream bared his teeth. Christ, he _hated_ how the President pronounced his name, especially when trying to hide his annoyance—or amusement. It could be a growl or a purr_: Stah-screeeeeem_.

Where he had gotten that stuffy affectation was anybody's guess, but Starscream hated it. He also hated having to muffle his breathing until the fool finished his Presidential inspection of the bathroom and meandered out, but at least waiting until his eldest sister stormed into the men's bathroom with emergency anti-histamine (and a metric ton of scathing verbal abuse and a slap to the head) shaved a forty-five minutes off of his floor time.

Fully restored and no longer sporting the lips of some collagen-inflated movie diva, Starscream returned to the public.

The evening dragged on. And on. And on.

He smiled, nodded when spoken to, spread his company's good Word and thoroughly avoided the buffet. He even let a few investors in on some ridiculously well-known 'secrets' that nonetheless sounded very confidential when prefaced with a 'I shouldn't be telling you this'. Their eyes lit and they wandered off, perfectly ignorant with multi-billion inheritances burning holes in their silk-lined pockets.

At eleven, Starscream was spent and still had two more hours to go. Hob-nobbing was exhausting enough without having an allergy attack, and annoying enough without being trapped in such a highbrow menagerie. Yes, the young Seeker had a taste for somewhat gaudy finery and couldn't fail to enjoy the interior and the well-executed pomp of the evening, but there was far too little _Starscream_ involved in said glamour to keep his mood from souring.

He was technically released from bondage to the masses when the swing band arrived, and so turned to free, ridiculously expensive alcohol as a way to keep himself occupied (ie not staring his amiable, perfect President cutting a rug with unquestionable skill and a smarmy grin and yet _another_ woman dissolving in his arms). With so much to ignore, he got _quite_ tipsy as a result. Unfortunately, he also knew he would be in an unspeakable amount of trouble if Megatron spotted him staggering around or acting anything but sober and _oh-so_ obedient. As much as he hated the chains of subordination, Starscream wasn't insane enough to test his employer so openly in such a vital arena.

Well-trained smile decaying into an ugly grimace the moment he was alone, Starscream pushed out into one of the side balconies. He winced and almost reconsidered when a blast of frigid January wind hit him, slicing instantly through Megatron's flimsy dark silk. Nonetheless, the shock cut away half of his buzz.

The young Seeker stood on the balcony and sobered up a bit, finally _breathing_ after being trapped with dozens of self-obsessed prize animals, but reality eventually took the place of the uncomfortable forbidden tingle and found him much more cranky for it.

It was a long evening and he was hell-bent on hating every second of it. It wasn't so much, however, that he detested all the schmoozing—he himself would have to indulge his investors when _he_ was head of D-Con industries and he knew the skill of being a good actor—but rather detested the fact that his President was the one doing it. Megatron had the most uncanny ability to infuriate him by something as harmless as a sneeze; as asinine as his preference for handkerchiefs and the fact he liked his steaks so rare they bled. The Darwinian nature of business said the fool should have been eliminated long ago—he wasn't fit for this—so to see him meandering round the dance floor with a drink in one hand and a conquered woman in the other, smiling with all the charm he possessed as the dumb star-spangled masses _bought it_, again and again, in the poorest of disguises… it simply set his Second on fire.

What Starscream couldn't, or refused to realize was that the President possessed a charisma, as powerful as a hand to a cheek or a boot to the throat, that he never would. If he had known this, or claimed it as the weakness it was, it might have changed his life—and saved them both.

Unaware of anything deeper than a practical and selfish hatred for his glorious _lord_, Starscream let himself half-collapse on the rail, pillowing his forehead against his crossed arms. For a moment, all was cold and quiet. Expectations were null. He might even have been at his apartment, leaning over his own balcony. He didn't have long to rest: the balcony door creaked open behind him and he straightened reflexively, rising to his hands instead of his elbows.

_Of course_, he thought crankily. Impatient to be alone again, the Seeker glared out into the cold blue city, wind whipping around him at such a high, noiseless altitude. That same wind slammed up against the black-blue ice of the nearby high-rise windows as though it could break them but did not touch the buttery amber windows of the lit Fisher tower. He watched the little line of headlights pushing through the squiggles of highway far down below him, waiting.

The person—man—behind him breathed out, heavy and satisfied, over the delicate scrape of a liquor glass on stone.

"You forwent the boots, I see."

The deep, amused voice made the young man's teeth clack together and his hackles rise. Any sense of calm evaporated. Starscream's eyes immediately narrowed: his existence was a source of amusement to someone, _somewhere_, he was certain of it. He took a deep, deep breath.

"Forgive me if I choose not to step into your attempts to mock me."

"My mistake. I believed I was catering to your tastes," the President said lightly, _far_ too lightly for hooker boots. Obviously, he was in a gorgeous mood after having his ego stroked all night. Starscream's lip curled as his pale cheeks filled with ugly pink. There was a rustle of silk.

"Come. I have something you will not fail to appreciate."

Finally forced to _respond_ through rank and sheer force of expectation, Starscream hissed out the last of his resentment and turned around to see his President standing on the other side of the balcony, holding a tiny velvet ring box aloft.

Or, at least it looked like a ring box, which found the Seeker staring uncomprehendingly until Megatron opened it, revealing the thorny company symbol in gold. A tie pin. Simple, yet elegant. The older man didn't offer it to him, but let the jewelry linger in the buttery lamplight under Starscream's eternally greedy eyes, then motioned the far younger man over.

His Second huffed but came, striding until he was within arms reach. Megatron closed the distance between them, and Starscream could instantly smell the man's strong, spicy cologne, the mint and grey martini scent on his breath (because perhaps the insipid nature of all of this drove him to drink as well, perhaps he hated it more than he let on?). But where practical Starscream expected a hand-off, his President took the pin from the box, uncapped it, and destroyed any semblance of personal space by grabbing hold of the Seeker heir's tie. Though Starscream stiffened, his employer merely took great pains to poke the pin in near the top, much like his own blood-red swath of silk.

Starscream found himself holding his breath and trying not to bare his teeth. He hated having Megatron tower over him, particularly because the same powerful presence that the stupid baroness had swum in was now a hard tide sucking at his knees. Why did the damn man have to _vibrate_?

When the pin was set, he tried to move away, but Megatron pulled him back, smoothed the tie and did the same to his lapels. It was obvious he approved of the fit of the suit. When Starscream dared to bring his chin up an inch to face that presence, there was a generous, lazy smile on his employer's face.

"Handsome."

If just from the smolder of his eyes, he wasn't speaking of the pin.

"What is this?" Starscream asked suspiciously, ears suddenly burning in the cold. Megatron looked glad that he had asked, which only made the younger man's hair stand on end.

"A gift."

He did not remove his hands from Starscream's front; in fact, one thick thumb came forward to rub the gold pin clean, right on top of his suddenly fragile collarbone. Starscream's very brainstem twitched. Megatron had throttled him with those same hands—it was impossible to bear their overwhelming heat without some flinching, especially when his President was _looking_ at him that way.

"A token of my… appreciation for you, Starscream. Well-deserved and long overdue."

It was too much. The whole thing stank of a dirty ploy: there had to be a sniper poised on the adjacent tower, ready to blow his head off. The young man's skin practically exploded against the freezing air, inexplicable panic seizing him.

"_What is this_? What are you _doing_?" he demanded, tearing himself and his gold pin away from the older man's too-powerful hands. What he wanted to say was _you'll forgive me if this sudden shift in conduct merits suspicion_, but what came out of the hellish previous week and the held-breath frustration of the gala and the haze of alcohol was a nasal, infuriated:

"The suit, the boots, the—the driver! All of this trash, why the hell are you throwing it at me!?"

Once he stood four feet away and panting, Megatron simply _looked_ at him as though he was enjoying the last few moments where his inferior remained disoriented and angry, thrashing against something he did not understand. At last, he put the ring box in his pocket and patted it twice, fondly, handsome face turned toward the warm glow of the tower's French-glass doors.

"I believe it is called courtship. A tradition you wouldn't be aware of, admittedly, in your generation," the President began conversationally, reaching up to scrub his fingers over his dark strict goatee. "It often begins with a show of interest, in the form of making gifts to your intended. Despite your obvious suspicions, I can assure you that the clothes are a gift, free of any deeper machinations. The car is also yours."

The balcony was quiet, a landscape of stone and glass, dusty blue shadows and warm custard highlights. People laughed inside the tower, far away. Starscream realized his mouth was open but he physically could not shut it. Stupidly, desperate not to hear what else the older man said, he thought about the car. It was a very nice car. He would have to rent another parking space for it, but it was too nice not to.

It was also a gift from a man he hated, who also claimed to be courting him. Something snapped, deep in Starscream's sanest place. He stared up at his President, utterly frozen.

"I am attempting to capture your attention, my dear Seeker," Megatron said at last, his deep voice almost a purr. Then, in a mockery of openness, there came a concerned expression and a twitch of his brows. "But if my methods are too archaic, please inform me and I will reconsider my approach and try again at the next opportunity."

That same farce of an expression transformed into a smug, powerful smile in the ensuing silence. The two mens' eyes locked and Starscream was helpless to stop what followed.

The silver-haired man once more walked forwards, closing the distance between President and Second. His warm hand took the small of the young Seeker's back and pulled him close. Through the shorter man's thin suit, the touch felt like a bright orange splotch in an entirely black-blue thermographic image: rapture in temperature with all the frigid wind around him. His bones began to shake.

The man did not stop. Reaching down, he took his inferior's hand and raised it toward his mouth, just like with that woman. Starscream felt horribly weak in the chest, half for the preposterous insanity of the moment. Then the grip on his back tightened imperceptibly, pushing him against a horribly hard chest, and the feeling of _being claimed_ made his gut tighten. His heart slammed back to life.

This was not a proposition—a night in silk sheets. That had come before and been refused. This was something far more dangerous. A proposal.

In business, they meant the same thing. In _their_ business, they were worlds apart.

"I am a very patient man, Starscream," the President murmured quietly against Starscream's knuckles. His warm breath pinkened the other man's hand, which was now shaking in his. "If you are considering resisting… It would be best to save yourself the battle, should you wish to make the best of your situation. You have much to gain."

That was the last straw, but it did not give him the strength to pull away. On the contrary, the insufferable gall of the older man only made Starscream indecisive enough to stay frozen against Megatron's chest as the older man leaned down, took his cheek in his callused hand and kissed him.

The fool kissed him, nothing more than a firm press of mouth. It was horribly prudish, slightly damp and yet it stole the cartilage from Starscream's knees. The power in simple pressure, or in the scent of him and the warmth of skin, made his mind go blank and his temperature rise. When the feeling came bursting back into his numb body with a throb of his heart, it was all Starscream could do not to press back, to throw himself on that source of hard heat and brutality in grey silk and _give in_.

He had not been functionally touched for months. At his President's whim 24 hours a day, the young Seeker had little time and patience for food, much less sex, as his life hatefully narrowed to the man he intended to conquer one day. But now, with that same powerful, despised figure holding him as though he were so very valuable, there was a nonsensical crash of fulfillment and a desperate want to please so that he could be sheltered in that tangible power instead of fighting it. Most of all, there was a wash of heavy possibility.

Namely, the possibility that had always stained his mind: he would never defeat the other man and this was the best way. The only way. Mother's way.

Suddenly, Starscream pushed away with a rattlesnake hiss, driving his hands hard into the older man's chest, once more restrained by an enemy on a frigid balcony. He fought briefly, striking out in what limited space he could, but Megatron would not let go and Starscream was too stunned to fight for more than five inches of distance. The President watched the younger man, waiting.

"What on earth would you be able to offer me?" Starscream finally grit out. His mind and body still swam, steadied only by force of hatred.

"Everything," Megatron answered immediately, never flinching from Starscream's narrowed eyes. His grip on Starscream's wrist suddenly softened, papery thumb sliding over the younger man's exposed palm. "Provided you only take what is given to you and do not claw senselessly for more."

The last of Starscream's helplessness vanished, chased away by fury. The burn made him steadier, denser, more capable of viciously intelligent thought.

So. The fool thought he would be bought.

"Your definition of _everything_ seems limited to your generosity," he growled, pushing again to free himself, but still Megatron held him, voice as calm as ice.

"I am speaking of the highest position that I can offer you, Starscream. All that is within my power to give, I will. You have merely to ask and I will provide it—if you pledge yourself to me in all honesty. Myself as well as the company."

He was about to say that he was the man's second—what greater promotion could he offer save a surrendering of his own chair?—but Megatron's grip tightened on his arm and wrist again, breath tensely coloring the air white between them.

"I am tired of battling you. You are talented, and yet you waste that talent against me. You have so much potential. I want to see what you can do when unhindered by your pathetic attempts to seize my position. You may be my Second, but you will notice that I do not allow you within ten feet of anything I truly value. Therefore I speak of esteem, Starscream, not rank. Trust would transform us, but I am not the one toying with the contents of your glass."

Starscream made a choking noise as the older man grabbed his upper arms with iron fingers and held him yet closer than before. The President glared down at his upturned face as though seeing it for the first time, grey eyes blazing in equal parts passion and deadly frustration. His deep voice dropped yet an octave further, harshening.

"What would it take to satiate you, beautiful brat? What must I do to have you put down your gun and actually join me?"

Starscream could tell immediately that they were real questions: questions the warlord had asked himself time and again. He occupied his President's thoughts more than he ever suspected. The fact that Megatron had always seen through his act, however, and lived daily with the fact his second was a traitorous liar, produced little more than a flutter of shock as compared to having his very _state of being_ negotiated.

Megatron, always one for euphemisms and niceties, had finally cornered him with honesty—and, in return, asking him to be horribly honest with himself. None had ever asked Starscream where he would stop, but the second he heard the question, he knew.

He would stop after he had played his piece. He would only put down his gun after he had fired it, regardless of where the bullet flew, if just to leave his mark on the world.

His battle had become senseless, even he could admit it in his darkest regions. He fought for a goal that he had to meet certain expectations to keep--and evidence was piling up to the contrary. The company would not follow him. He was too young; he would not be able to manage leading neither the sprawling arms of organized illegality nor the accomplished men who sat in the very building he worked in, technically underneath him in rank. They did not trust him, nor did he trust them. He did not have a leader's charisma and he would not be able to keep the true affairs of the company from the public. Megatron could do more than he ever could.

Heated with crushing insecurity, all of the thorns of logic in the young man's side only increased his frenzy to win, to conquer the unconquerable man who threatened to expose the internal weaknesses and vital flaws that Starscream coveted as strengths. If he could only _defeat_ Megatron, everything would be worthwhile. Nothing could fail to work out, with such a tremendous goal gained—surely everything would fall into place. Surely he would have all the power he had ever wanted and his life would be complete.

Here, Megatron actually expected him to _submit_ in exchange for luxuries he already had access to. He could see it. Of course he could see it, as anyone—anyone who has ever feared being used--can.

The President would throw him trinkets like the car every so often. Perhaps fuck him when he felt like it, if the kiss was any indication, and expect him to sit still and obey like a helpless fool. But Starscream had heard the urgency in his superior's voice. How high he could fly with someone so young and determined and viciously intelligent next to him, devoted to him, _conquered_ by him! What they could accomplish together!

If only the aging, desperate wretch could _trust_ Starscream, how very perfect things would be.

Starscream's lip curled; the President's hard fingers bit into his arms as the other man's expression darkened, but the sensation in them was long gone. He was invincible. He had everything the old man didn't. He could not fail and, one day, it would be _him_ giving orders from behind that mahogany desk--and his first one would be to see Megatron fall to his creaking knees in front of him, and kiss the floor.

Vibrating down to his bones, Starscream jerked free from the older man, stepping back until he could no longer feel the other's body heat. The cold soon washed away all sensation—all memory of the silk suit, the hand, bone-dissolving, on his cheek. Megatron's hands lowered to his side, expression both dangerous and wary; Starscream felt only a small tremor of fear as he sneered and turned away, voice gravelly.

"A pathetic proposal from a pathetic man. The mere fact you thought to offer this to me proves that I overestimated you."

Starscream's talon-like fingers played over the pure gold pin atop his tie before he snorted and reached for the French glass door.

"Try as you may, there will be no deal. You can't give me what I want, _President_."

The slight young man disappeared in a gush of warm butter-yellow air and the cold clack of doors falling shut. Far away, the sound of police sirens fought with the wind, producing a tinny whistle. Megatron looked toward it with a furrowed brow, exhaling deeply and palming his clean silver hair back.

"But I have every power to keep it from you until you see sense, little Seeker."

Whittled by the cold wind and the smile he had plastered on all night, the older man's frustration finally flagged. His proposal had failed; he expected as much, but that made no difference. The exhaustion of the evening caught up with him all at once, and still society's pearls and the yellow white-marble insides of the clamshell glowed. Waiting.

Megatron lit a cigar with a small flash of a match, then tossed the jewelry box off into the cold night, half-listening for the impact that would never come. One day, Starscream would see sense, whether it was beaten into him or it beat him senseless. As the President returned to his act and his gala, he only prayed that the arrogant boy would survive the collapse of his own fantasy when that day came. Otherwise, he, and the company, had no future.

Still, he thought with a smiling mouthful of smoke as he closed the door on the cold city, how very like Starscream: fleeing the wedding and keeping the ring.


	29. Here Kitty Kitty

A/N: Three pages of nonsense.

The more and more I write Soundwave, I keep thinking "WHY ARE YOU IN THIS BUSINESS, SIR." He is horrendously OOC from a G1 AND TFA standpoint, and I apologize, but humanizing him has screwed with him. Shockwave is already the Beautifully Apathetic One, and this lonely, beleaguered 30-year-old Beatles-lover just, like, won't BE MADE into anything evil. He's the one that SIGHS when Megatron gives extravagantly evil orders. And takes his cat's honor very seriously.

Also, Partners nod :D Teehee.

_Characters: Soundwave, Ravage, SURPRISE_

_Pairings: kitty loooove_

_Notes: My take on Soundwave, as aforementioned, is really weird. Just warning you. This is more of a 'HE IS SO MISERABLE YOU WILL LOVE HIM NOW' snippet than anything._

* * *

Here Kitty Kitty

* * *

"Order: explain entry!"

The increase in decibels alone warranted the exclamation mark, even if it wasn't at all satisfying to speak at a louder level instead of _yell_ while waving his arms. The grey cat just looked at him—down its nose, at that—and sauntered off behind the desk.

Soundwave slapped his forehead.

At first, hiding Ravage at the office seemed like a relatively stable, if risky, ploy, considering the almost certain doom awaiting his poor feline were he locked in his nephew-infested apartment all day. Mostly, the cat just curled up in his lap and slept while he attended to his duties, then waited patiently in his 'gym bag' while Soundwave ferried him out of the building, as though fully informed of the need for secrecy. The ploy became a little less stable and a little more dangerous one week when Soundwave found out two very important things.

Ravage was not a he and Ravage was in heat.

Aside from making the first-time pet-owner radically uncomfortable, it was horribly complicated trying to hide her plaintive, insistent yowls while he was on any of the various communication channels, organizing everything from meetings to drop-off points. The telecommunications officer's stowaway was nearly found out upon three separate, very stressful occasions, one of which involved Starscream sneezing upon entry to his office and shrieking that he smelled _cat_. Otherwise, Soundwave had pleaded "Connection: unstable. Feedback probable." so many times that the President had ordered a full-system overhaul of their telecommunications, which he only vetoed at the last moment.

Then one day, as if it wasn't complicated enough, someone answered her call.

The cat showed up on the front step of the D-con high-rise one morning, a sinewy grey thing whose eyes lit when Soundwave half-trotted past him with his gym-bag-bulging-with-shifty-hormonal-she-cat. The rogue tried to follow, certainly, but the fact he was smacked in the face by the revolving doors was not _entirely_ Soundwave's fault when he was distracted by Ravage practically howling from inside the gym bag, which he could _not_ explain away with a faulty connection. Gym clothes _did not howl_.

Once the communications officer was up top, he opened his shades to his office—and nearly stumbled back over the desk. The cat, whose 'maximum potential height' was firmly lodged at the top step of the purple building (perhaps pawing fruitlessly at the glass), was sitting outside his 47th story window, tail waving placidly, eyes locked on the gym bag. Soundwave stared, practically fizzling at the ears.

Suddenly, his view of the freak-cat was blocked by Ravage, who went up on her back legs to press her paws to the glass and mrrow appreciatively. The imposter mirrored the motion and, apoplectic, Soundwave regained motion long enough to snatch her back and close the shades, disapproving buzz of his vocalizer causing her ears to flatten to her head with a grouchy gurrrrr.

At the end of the day, the window ledge was empty and there was no cat-sized splotch of blood and fur on the ground (and believe it, Soundwave looked)—which meant, of course, that Soundwave had yet to see the last of his cat's courtier.

He came in to work the next day, almost having forgotten about the incident due to some pressing business the President had assigned him, and found the devil-cat _in his office_.

Soundwave tossed him out (discretely). The cat came back (with equal, nay, _impossible_ discreteness).

Soundwave tried everything. He couldn't lock the doors to his office, but he bolted all the windows and kept an eye on security cameras, and still the cat materialized out of the shadows, against all common physics—_always_ to stride over and make lewd overtures to his lady-cat, half the time nearly exposing her in the process. It was getting to the point where Soundwave was staring at corners and twitching and glaring around if there was a sudden noise. This was a problem.

"ORDER: EXPLAIN ENTRY!"

Currently, the devil-cat had squirmed into his office again—under the door, over the door, _through_ the door, and what about the stairways in between?!—and beelined for Ravage's hiding place under the desk, completely ignoring his order. Soundwave tugged viciously at his hair for a moment, voice simulator spitting static, as there were no clipped, logical phrases to describe what he was experiencing at that moment. Usually, impartial computer-speak suit him perfectly--he even chose to use it as it suited the rather bland feeling of his life after he lost the ability to speak and sing—but today? Today, he didn't even particularly care that he was talking to an animal, much less ordering it to explain itself.

Today, someone was attempting to steal his cat's honor.

Soundwave rushed after him, going to his knees to drag the devil-cat out and stop him from having his way with Ravage, only to find the space under his desk completely empty. Baffled, he stared, red visor considerably askew, then heard a nasal meow from above him, which only ended in him slamming his head on the underside of his desk.

He surfaced rubbing the back of his head and fuming from the ears, then abruptly stopped plotting neuter-y vengeance when faced with the scene of the two purring cats on his desk. Black and grey, shiny and rough, they sat leaning against one another with their tails batting at the air. They looked positively smitten. The communications officer recalled enough frustration to manage a rather useless glare at the tomcat, then realized he actually had a collar and peered at the scratched-up tag.

"Designation: Bradbury?"

Bradbury looked immensely pleased with himself. Soundwave only sighed with the deepest melancholy humanly (and electronically) possible as his darling pushed underneath the rogue's chin, purring her acceptance with a passionate motor-boat noise. Now, as so often these days, Soundwave couldn't say no. It was settled. Two cats would be harder to hide than one, but he was sure he would find a way.

Kittens, however, were out of the question, which was why his next phone-call was to the vet. Revenge, it seemed, was still possible.


	30. Split

A/N: Short scene inspired totally by my beloved Enolianslave, once again explaining Starscream's copious issues. Plus, I love his mother. SHE CRAZY BITCH. (and, as Oni-Gil guessed, Papa Seeker is never really mentioned because he's basically Mama Seeker's pet. The end.)

There's an allusion to something significant about Megatron in here, which I'm trying to convince myself to write the backstory for. I'm fascinated by the connection between Megs and Sumdac in this 'verse, so my brain has been munching on it. Iiiiiiinterest? :3

_Characters: Starscream, Mama Seeker, Megatron-centric_

_Pairings: Implied Megatron/Starscream_

_Warnings: twisted familial relations._

* * *

Split

* * *

"It was insulting. To even think of saying such a thing," the young man fumed, kicking off his boots. "And besides that, the fool claims to be--courting me!"

"Fantastic."

It was a soft exhalation, that of _victory_.

Neck prickling, Starscream turned to see his mother's dark, smoky eyes pinned on him in her vanity mirror, mauve mouth pursed in a smile. She did not even pause in touching up her fearsome brows with her slim black pencil, extra definition only adding to her smug felinity.

Irritation boiling over, Starscream cursed through his teeth and stalked over to one of the bedroom's many mirrors, ripping at his tie and suddenly desperate to be free of all of his tight, over-starched clothing. It was an itch that would not depart until he was free of his parents' mansion, he knew, or his mother's room, but at the moment his brainstem hated the feeling of having something tied around his neck.

"Will you never be satisfied?" she demanded, lowering her voice to suit the open door and the golden glow of the dining room beyond. The two could barely hear the distant clinks and clanks of the maids cleaning the table after their dinner—a full suit and tie affair, like every meal since adolescence. Every month since the six children scattered, they would come together again and choke down food without trying to kill each other. If it was to keep up appearances, it was an ugly appearance at best; even the maids abstained from eye-contact and huddled in the parlor until it ended, fearing snarling matches at best and thrown plates at worst. As it was, the evening went moderately well. Slipstream had overturned her chair and stormed out halfway through, but that was common fare. Out of all of them, she was the most vocal about despising their mother. Her brothers did not dare.

Amid the flustered slither of a silk tie being yanked off, the heiress finally parted from her own reflection to glare at her son directly, crossing her tiny ankles at the hem of her slim black dress with an impatient expression.

"You are already his Second! Even I didn't think it possible so soon: you should be pleased, not clawing at his desk. If you continue to perform and prove yourself, he will easily pass on the company to you. It is practically already in your hands!"

Starscream only bristled further, glaring at his reflection in the dimly-lit room with all of its designer fixings and poufs and relentless catalogue color-schemes. Regardless of his need to vent to someone about the insulting ordeal on the balcony, he shouldn't have expected understanding from her. Her second oldest son hated the way she thought, primarily because she had taught him to think the same way: and he had entertained the same notions.

Starscream was arrogant and thought compromise to be the epitome of weakness, but he was not an idiot. At Megatron's approach, part of him, no matter how small and dwarfed by venom and scorn, had momentarily contemplated being handed the world on a silver platter. But it wasn't enough. He didn't want a silver platter, he wanted a platinum platter.

"Look at where you are. And now, this? The fact that he is interested in you personally… you could not ask for more."

Didn't want it given. Wanted to take.

"The man has a singular weakness, and you are it. He has offered you all you will ever get from this life. The moment those doors open, go up to his office and formally accept his proposal. I don't care how much of a deviant he is, do whatever he says. No questions. Obey for as long as it takes for him to start to underestimate you, then move. Simple as that. He will be under your thumb in a year."

He wanted to own, claim, tear from cold fingers. Domination, power. Success, worthiness, unquestioned allegiance. Not enough, part of him screamed, _never enough_.

"You will, of course," his mother stated evenly from a world away. "Won't you, Starscream?"

"He will never die," Starscream muttered to himself, flinging his tie to the floor. Turning, the heiress glanced at it, eyes narrowing as her son clawed systematically at his suit shirt, dark hair obscuring his face.

"Excuse me?"

"He isn't human. He will simply never _die_."

"He is flesh and blood as much as the rest of us—what is wrong with you?"

"_No_."

Starscream turned enough so the older woman could see the manic glint in his eyes, his clenched teeth as his enemy conquered him from within for the thousandth time.

Megatron was infallible, impossible: the silver of his hair spoke not of age and frailty but of warrior steel. The years had hardened him, and now strengthened him into something godly day by day. For Starscream, age was a fearful road, a battle even as he was still young. He loved his age and his body far too much and feared any kind of decline, any kind of delay, which birthed a dangerous impatience and entitlement that would define him. What he wanted, he wanted now--before he lost any advantage. Patience was an impossibility, second thoughts a joke.

Megatron had no such compulsions, having already staked his claim on life and survived the dissipation of his own golden youth—something Starscream subconsciously could not imagine living past. The weakness the Seeker thought he heard that night on the balcony was gone the next day: striding through the halls of the high-rise, the President was just as invincible as ever, superhuman in his charisma and strength and viciousness. He had no need of anyone, young or intelligent or clever, and the blast that would topple his granite statue did not belong to the world of weakening flesh.

Starscream looked at his pale reflection as if seeing it for the first time, running his sharp nails over his nose, through his dark hair, as though it would fall away in the next moment.

"I will be seventy before his eyes start to fail."

"I said, what are you whining about?" the heiress snapped, pleasure long gone. She scowled as she took off the last of her heavy jewelry and laid them carefully in their velvet-lined boxes, as one handles a life's work.

"I have to take it," Starscream said tensely, hands motionless on his shirt as he stared unseeingly at the wall.

The path worked itself out in his head, as it had so many times before, but given horrible clarity by Megatron's offer. As if in blood or ink, a line was drawn. There would be no surrender. There would be no compromise.

"He will destroy the company with his plodding tactics if I don't take it from him. By the time he _hands_ it to me, D-con will be a wreck of a holding and I won't have it. It's the only way to save it, and the only way the bastard will relinquish his position is if he's ruined or dead."

His mother suddenly slammed the lid of her jewelry box, scattering a caught strand of pearls in a thousand directions as the string snapped—but for once, she did not have eyes for her treasures.

"Are you speaking of murder? You dense little _brat_," the woman spat, rising to her feet with an adder hiss of silk. "If you don't sit down and remember your place, you will destroy everything I did for you! You must realize the rules and the constants in our world and work within them: you must realize what authority _is_ and how to _use_ it without once touching anything yourself!"

Starscream responded with little more than an impatient snort; the older woman closed the distance between them and seized him by the wrists, digging her red nails in much like the day she gave him away. The tender white skin below his hands was pockmarked with crescent shaped scar-tissue.

"Are you listening to me, Starscream?" She yanked at him until he looked down at her, thin lips curling in an ugly sneer. "For one moment, control yourself and your insufferable ego and look to the greater good. See _sense_. I did not get where I am by seeking to displace your father!"

"And you will excuse me if I desire to become something more than a kept whore," Starscream said softly, dark eyes glassy.

Her nails dug in deep enough to sting, her sculpted face perfectly frozen. The heiress stared for a long moment before backhanding Starscream sharply across the face. It was forceful enough—all of the force in her tiny, cruel body—that his head jerked to the side, where it stayed as his mother turned and walked out of her bedroom, dress held above her knife-like heels. After a moment, the young man bent to gather his shoes, his tie, went barefoot into the front of the house, got into his car and left.

The next month, there was no invitation.


	31. Calling

A/N: A bit of Starscream's past, ala G1 influences :3 Skyfire isn't a TFA character, obviously, so I'm flying by the seat of my pants, here. This'll be basically the shift in Screamer's life that led him to be so very… in StarshineMB's words, 'frigid' towards Megatron XP

_Characters: Skyfire, Starscream_

_Pairings: None. Skyfire is depressingly straight. AND STARSCREAM RESENTS THAT._

_Warnings: certain forms of—hurm—x-rated bribery with teachers ala Slutscream. (Trust me, it's not just for the sake of abiding by the Starscream-is-a-whore trope in this fandom. IT WILL MEAN THINGS.) Also, I heart organic chemistry: can you tell kids!? I know this isn't the level of stuff they'd be studying, but all you chemist-fanfic-readers out there, forgive me: it's technobabble at this point._

* * *

Calling

* * *

"So, the first bromine doesn't attach to a carbocation because a carbocation is never made. The reason all of them are strictly trans stereoisomers is because the positive bromide--

"Yes, makes the bromonium three-ring ion and the leftover bromium ion attaches to the anti-orbital of the free CH2 when it breaks. Exclusively trans arrangement. Same thing with epoxide rings. I get it."

Skyfire blinked up at the younger student, who was currently lounging on Skyfire's modest white-sheeted twin bed as though it were his own. The large blond boy—not fat, not muscular, simply six foot seven and _mammoth_—sat cross-legged on the floor in a snowy pile of his own notes and three open books. As usual, Starscream's bored eyes were mowing across the pages of his own textbook, one that more often than not had nothing to do with organic chemistry and everything to do with another class he was taking. That day, it was advanced statistics.

The silence—the pause between Skyfire's next explanation—dallied so much that Starscream tore himself from an in-depth discussion of closed-form anti-derivatives to look down his nose at the other student, arching an incredibly 'and-just-what-is-the-hold-up' brow. Skyfire just returned the stare, expression somewhat befuddled, then cleared his throat.

"You're… really good at this."

Brow seemingly frozen in place, Starscream turned back to his textbook and made a noise to show he wasn't entirely ignoring the other student. Skyfire ruffled some of his pale hair back into place, running a thick finger over the diagrams that the Seeker boy had just detailed to him.

"I mean, you get all of this information without even trying. You hear it once and you're fine. It's really incredible. I have to study a lot. I love it, but… "

Skyfire shook his head, blustering slightly as he realized he was single-handedly breaking their record for exchanged words. The two lab partners normally operated with a strict minimum of discussion, as they were _academic contacts_ and nothing more. After a moment, the future chemical engineer shrugged.

"You're just really intelligent."

"I'm not just here for looks," Starscream said smugly, resettling himself on the bed with a cocked leg and the air of a finely-bred peacock who knew just how much those looks helped in the struggle for supremacy.

Admittedly, Starscream was very handsome… but Skyfire couldn't place why, because his voice could peel paint, his sharp features didn't add up properly and he was overall too _narrow_ to be traditionally handsome. Maybe it was the concentrated confidence that oozed from him every waking second—or arrogant entitlement, the two are easily confused by humble souls—but Starscream was an attention-grabber.

Or maybe it was just his habit of dressing in ridiculously tight t-shirts and low-slung pajama pants that showed both the dimples in his back and the lines of his hips when he didn't care what people, namely Skyfire the Geek, thought of him.

Skyfire tore his eyes from _that_ sight (no need to ask which way Starscream swung) and shook his head, asking, "Do you like it?"

"Science?" Starscream clarified, gnawing briefly on his pen. "Yes."

"How much?"

"More than anything else," he said after a long moment. Skyfire scratched at his chin, trying not to stare at the boy on his bed.

"Why don't you… you know. Change your major?"

"There's no money in it."

Skyfire hardly thought Starscream was the one to be saying that. His family was so rich, his entrance ticket to the prestigious Iacon Academy was his birth certificate. Technically, he could afford to be a jobless moocher for the rest of his life and still have enough green to pass down to three generations of jobless moocher kids. Skyfire, on the other hand, hardly had a life through high-school in order fulfill all the requirements for a scholarship that he only had a chance in hell of getting. Not that he resented the other young man, perhaps only because Skyfire wasn't _capable_ of resentment, but what good was money if it didn't let you do what you liked?

"But… why business?"

"Because there's no other option," Starscream said, vague tone not matching his words. He turned a page, cocking his head. "In my family, you're a businessman and that's it."

"But you like science."

He heard something faint, maybe Starscream mocking him with a whiny '_but you're an idiot'_, but that was all. With nothing else to interrupt the other student with, Skyfire finished reading off the last of his notes on alkene transformations and paused when he reached the last page, frown turning into a semi-hopeful smile.

"You know, you should come to our study group on Tuesdays. I'm sure the rest of my group would like having another person to bounce ideas off of—especially someone with your level of retention."

"Study groups are for people who don't have fuckbuddies," Starscream sniffed, snapping his book shut and sighing impatiently. "Are we done here?"

Blue eyes wide, Skyfire looked up at him lamely for a second, then realized that dry, expectant stare was meant for _him_ and bent to ruffle through the chemistry book and open his notebook, grimacing slightly.

"Yeah, I… I think that's everything. At least, everything we covered in class," he said faintly, scratching his head.

"Thanks," Starscream drawled, looping his bag over his shoulder and striding out the cramped dorm room. Without looking over his shoulder, he called back, "Make it Wednesday next week—I have something going on Thursday," and shut the door before Skyfire had a chance in hell of answering… or protesting that Thursday was inconvenient for him. The older student stared after Starscream, then sighed as he cleared the piles of notes from his floor, suddenly feeling exhausted.

"Yeah. Sure."

If there was one thing Skyfire wasn't, it was stupid.

He may have been intensely book-smart and a little limited because of it, but he was socially savvy enough to read the signs. He knew Starscream was using him. Even if the Academy was a little more prestigious than high-school, the rules still held: Skyfire was a geek, and people like Starscream (rich, beautiful, prone to partying and hooking up at random with other rich, beautiful people) didn't associate with geeks unless they were going to get something out of it. But it helped him to explain things to someone else—and that usually all it was, Starscream laying on his bed and listening to him talk through synthetic reactions and so forth—so it was study-time for him as well, and he just liked to help people.

To him, it was nice to have both a steady lab partner and extra study-time, and he thought little more of it. Starscream, however, was something different.

Skyfire didn't realize how different until he was in the chemistry annex at ten at night, just to see if the lab door was unlocked (he had left his chemistry book in there after looking up some pKa values for an experiment). He wandered around, trying different doors after the first one failed, if just to find another living soul he could talk into opening up his lab.

Then he almost walked in on Starscream in an empty lab room, but it wasn't empty, because there was a teacher in there with him--and the other boy was on his knees in front of him.

Skyfire couldn't run. It was like his mind had been forcibly rebooted and the mortified, shocked _runrunrun_ impulses simply weren't reaching his knees. The lines between faculty and student body were so thick and impassable in his compartmentalized mind, the scene just didn't make sense.

By the time Starscream strode out a bare minute later, buttoning up his Academy jacket for the cold night outside, Skyfire was pressed against the wall and sweating. He couldn't even begin to pretend he hadn't seen anything, even before Starscream turned around with both hands on his lapels. Far from spotting him and dragging him into the nearest hallway to hiss into his ear _before anyone sees you_, however, Starscream just stared at his lab partner as though it was no surprise to find him there in the half-lit hallway, rectangular glasses askew.

The Seeker heir arched an eyebrow, flashed him a brittle, accomplished smile, and simply disappeared with the click of a door and a gush of cold air from outside, leaving Skyfire breathless and sick and counting every hour until they would be forced to suit up next to each other in lab like nothing had happened.

* * *

His recall was getting worse. The synthetic transformations were coming out at five-minute intervals, all halting and interspersed with 'um's and 'hold on's. Starscream had sent him at least seven irritated stares that day, but it was hard to pretend everything was normal when Skyfire couldn't even meet the other student's eyes.

Every time Starscream looked at him, he got sick all over again. His neck and ears flushed as he remembered the fear when the door to the lab rattled and he had to run to avoid being seen by the teacher that Starscream had just…

"And?"

Starscream was angry. That much was obvious. Perhaps because he was inches from walking out, Skyfire gave up trying to think about organic chemistry and simply asked it, blood going cold as soon as he opened his mouth.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do _what_?" Starscream snapped, as though wondering how anyone could question anything he did, much less how they _deserved_ to when they were absolutely useless at chemistry and there was a test the next day.

"With the teacher," Skyfire managed. He gulped a mouthful of air, trying his hardest not to duck his head and to face Starscream's sharp eyes. "You're so intelligent. Why do you…"

The older student trailed off, feeling sick for even mentioning such an act, much less witnessing a glass-blurred second of it. He never assumed to know anything about Starscream, but this was too much. To his surprise, however, there was no explosion. Starscream's puzzled, hostile look abruptly faded. He snorted softly, face blank, and looked back to the book (international relations) he was reading.

"Insurance."

It was a single word, easily understood—but it just wasn't _enough._

"But you're so _smart_," Skyfire exclaimed, throat tight.

"Stop saying that, you sound like an idiot," the Seeker sneered, then flicked his hand as he made a show of studying a chart in his book. "Go over the demercuration reaction again. It's exclusively Markovnikov, correct?"

With previous subjects, it was enough to be dismissed by Starscream: it meant the conversation was over. But with this, it didn't disappear with a gesture. It still hung in the air, and Skfire still looked at his lab partner uncomprehendingly, fighting for words to make him acknowledge what he was doing; how many mistakes he was making with one act.

"I'm not an idiot. I'm trying to, I don't know, to talk to you! Has anybody tried to do that? You can make it on your own without—without even _trying_ and you're doing stuff like this? How does that even make sense?"

"How dare you. I try." Starscream's voice was startlingly low, eyes suddenly lighting defensively. "I try so hard you couldn't even imagine."

"I-I know that!" Skyfire protested, skin prickling to see Starscream's shoulders rising, his lip curling—his mind shutting off. He could feel the door between them, never quite open, closing fast. "I mean, that's what's killing me: I _know_ that! I've seen you, how busy you are all the time. You barely even have time to study one subject at a time, much less eat. I don't understand how you can be so goddamn motivated _and_ so smart and still resort to stuff like this—not even considering what could happen if you get caught!"

"Because there's more to it than that."

"Like what?" Skyfire demanded, knowing even as he did so that he truly didn't want to know.

"I wouldn't do it if it were a chore," he drawled, like he was talking about a lazy Sunday at the park. The implication was crystal clear—horribly clear, practically an exhibitionist slam to Skyfire's reserved nature—but somehow the chemist vaulted the idea that would have made him abandon the younger student and blurted out:

"So you just like the idea of getting one over on your own teachers. Are you blackmailing him with it, too?"

After he said it, he fully expected Starscream to storm out. It was enough to question him, and yet another thing to accuse him, but he stayed, dark eyes blurring as they stuck on the thousandth page of his textbook.

Somehow, the other young man had hit on something: Starscream's desire to conquer, to own. To be superior in all things, to be in control. Even as it was intended as an insult, Skyfire had known how his mind worked and what he desired from something that could so easily be viewed as an aimless, promiscuous distraction. He stared almost pensively at the page. When the Seeker heir spoke again, his thin voice was abnormally steady and calm.

"There are people who try in this world and still don't make it. For all their good intentions and dedication, for all their talent, they fail. Trying isn't enough. Operating within the bounds of academia isn't enough: there will always be higher test scores than mine. I refuse to accept failure, no matter what that means. No compromise."

"God, you—_god_, you need help."

Starscream glared over at his lab partner, whose face was in his hand. Skyfire shook his head viciously, as if trying to empty it of the words and twisted logic he'd just heard.

"You think you need to degrade yourself to get ahead? That it's the only safe way, even when people would bend over backwards just to know a Seeker? Who the hell taught you that, your mother?"

Skyfire jerked at a loud slapping sound—namely, Starscream slamming his fat textbook shut with all the force he could muster. The Seeker heir stared at him for a moment, dark eyes blazing with an anger Skyfire had never seen before, then shoved his books into his bag and stalked out. He slammed the door after himself, leaving his lab partner stunned and twice as sick as before.

And, as with all things concerning the tall, arrogant boy, Skyfire was a fool if he thought that was the end of it.


	32. Lesson

_Characters: Starscream, Skyfire_

_Pairings: none_

_Warnings: explicit gore/blood and cursing, implied non-con._

Also, Starscream is a freaking horrible person. He just is, even if you can see all of his insecurities flaring under his skin and understand him a little. I LIKE to think he gets better after this, but his moral rubberbanding just brings on a whole new retinue of personal issues. Is it any wonder Megatron's fascinated with him?

AFFnet calls to you, under the name of Odd Moments, where you will find a very dubious treat. Goddamn, ain't Christmas grand?

* * *

Lesson

* * *

Things were a little tense between the two students for the rest of the week—but regardless of ugly personal clashes, lab still came the same hour every Wednesday.

Of course, Skyfire tried to tell himself he really had no right to comment on what Starscream did, seeing as he was practically a stranger besides being his lab partner—but no one could simply hear something like that and let it go. It wasn't just his mistake but the twisting of academic rules. It wasn't _right_ and he was cursed with a morality (and the uncomprehending asexuality) of a holy man twice his age.

He tried to forget about all of it on Wednesday, just for three hours. The two young men were soon docked at their lab station, equipped with blocky green goggles and tongs for a synthesis experiment. Ten minutes in, Skyfire looked over and halted mid-question about the molarity of their hydrosulfiric acid to see Starscream with a pen to his mouth, looking almost pensive. The young man teased it over and slipped it past his lips, and Skyfire only had to follow his line of sight to see their gigantic, bearded chemistry teacher staring on the other end, who hurriedly looked down and repeated a warning about adding acid to water and not the other way around.

Skyfire, feeling unbearably sick and in want of a new lab partner, cleared his throat and tried to find his question again only to have Starscream nudge him with his hip.

"He wants to fuck me _so_ badly," Starscream whistled, eyes still fixed on their teacher's bowed head. Skyfire jerked so hard he nearly sent the full beaker of H2SO4 flying, instead sending the tongs crashing to the floor along with two vials. He stared at the carnage for a second, numb, then stared blankly at Starscream, who shrugged with a horribly sly smile.

"What?"

It was only then that Skyfire realized the danger of being the only one who knew: he was now subject to all the stuff Starscream couldn't speak to anyone else about. The older student became the sole recipient of some sort of sadistic normalization technique: Starscream would reveal a few exploits in brutal detail then laugh it off in the other boy's face, snidely mocking his virginity as though it were a greater crime than handing out sexual favors to teachers.

In no time it became a game. How far he could take it, how uncomfortable could he make Skyfire before he made some excuse and left with red ears and an upset stomach? He loved making the other boy miserable now that he had an edge, and began taking advantage of Skyfire in more ways than usual, leaving him to clean up his messes in lab and simply holding a hand out for the typed-up lab report that was, technically, both of their responsibility.

Skyfire was too much of a pacifist to tell the other boy to leave him alone. It simply wasn't in his nature and part of him still thought he could help the Seeker heir in some way. They still had lab together, after all, and soon, much more understanding than either desired.

* * *

Nine at night on a Tuesday, Skyfire was hanging around his tiny dorm room. According to his friends he was studying (and thus unable to accompany them to their favorite bar), but in truth he was just sitting with his biochemistry book open and the TV on. The remnants of his canned-soup dinner sat on his desk, spoon stickying up a pile of his old tests. His cellphone twittered; he reached over without looking and flipped the screen out to see the text.

_--Do you know First Aid?_

He frowned at the text. It was from Starscream: he had only seen that number twice, both times to ask 'where the hell he was' when he was five minutes late to their studying session due to the bus. Starscream hated being left outside a locked door, especially a geek's locked door: said it made him look like a freak. At least he was honest.

Skyfire scratched his head and returned that honesty, poking at the unfamiliar keypad: he wasn't a texter.

_--Not enough to save a life, but I have a kit. Why?_

There was no answer. The question (or the contact in general) seemed uncharacteristic but of no importance until Skyfire's door was pushed open and Starscream was half into his room before he could properly stand up. The fact that bright red blood was streaming in thick rivers down the skinny boy's forearm from a bright red hand nearly made him fall back to the floor. The older student finally scrambled to his feet and simply cupped his huge hands around the wound without touching it, trying to see cuts or muscle or _tendon_ through the glisten of fresh blood, forcing himself to breathe.

"What—how did this happen?" Skyfire demanded when he found his voice, entire body tingling violently. There were dark spots on his carpet: blood. Did blood come out of carpets? What was he going to tell maintenance if it didn't?

"None of your business," Starscream grit out, thrusting the hand towards him like it was a broken machine, arm just beginning to tremble. The shock was wearing off, the cause of his desperately dilated pupils. "Just fix it."

Obedient through panic, Skyfire scrambled for the first aid kit then led the other young man to the tiny bathroom—they barely fit, kneeling side by side—and put Starscream's hand under the bathtub faucet. He made sure the water was warm, even if the young Seeker still cursed at him and tried to snatch his hand away when water rushed into the revealed cuts. The gashes belched fresh blood into the stream of water, coloring it pink.

"At least tell me what caused this," Skyfire murmured, very carefully running his big fingers over the wounds; he hit one and Starscream jerked, hissing again. He felt something hard and sharp and thin poke into his finger. "Glass?"

"Beaker. I smashed one and some of it got in my hand," the Seeker said at last, eyes narrowed against the pain as Skyfire reached back for a pair of tweezers and gently, _gently_ nosed around the cut until he found the shard again.

"Why did you smash a beaker? And--and it's so late, why were you in the lab?"

"I told you, none of your goddamn business," Starscream snarled, then shrieked when Skyfire pulled at the piece of glass, buried ridiculously deep, and it broke through the skin and resulted in a new gush of blood. Starscream snatched his hand away, red droplets spattering the tile wall. "For fuck's sake, can't you do anything right?! Fucking—give me that!"

"Oh god. I'm sorry. I--here, I've got some, uh, some spray-on antiseptic when you get all of that out—"

He felt helpless watching Starscream pick at himself and flinch, so he left the Seeker heir crouched over the bathtub--the porcelain sides were stained watery pink, mirroring the diluted blood running down Starscream's white arm--and went back into the bedroom. He stood frozen for a good five minutes, staring at the black-red stains in his carpet, before sprawling out on his bed and listening to the gush of the bathroom faucet and Starscream's periodic hisses and stifled whimpers.

When he emerged half an hour later with a horribly white face, he allowed Skyfire to bandage his hand. Once he finished, Skyfire read a warning off of the gauze label, voice as mechanical as the instructions, then stopped and asked him _what happened_. Starscream just gathered his coat with a weak sneer and left the other boy's bathtub full of glass shards.

* * *

The very next day was lab, merciless and punctual. Skyfire walked in, more nervous and hyper-aware than usual, and found Starscream already at their station with the experiment all set up. He looked up and down the meticulously arranged row of equipment and pushed at his white-blond hair, stymied. Starscream was always the one to let him do the set-up and, recently, be on his way before clean-up.

"Why did you—"

"I have better things to do," Starscream muttered through his teeth, head low. "Let's get this over with quickly."

The Seeker kept his head down as students filed in all around them, shoulders hunched with a painful half-grimace on his face. Skyfire found himself glancing over every so often, as concerned for the other's damaged and stiff hand as his strange behavior. There were bags under his eyes. When the door clicked, Starscream stiffened and moved—almost invisibly, just a step--behind Skyfire, who looked up to see a man he did not know in the slightest.

It was a substitute teacher. The man introduced himself to the nonplussed silence of the students, then briefly outlined their experiment and 'let them at it'. Starscream visibly calmed down and settled for snapping at his lab partner at random intervals during the experiment. Skyfire left unsettled as usual, but with no answers.

Next time, however, there was no mystery cure to Starscream's ugly tension. The next week, lab came again and their normal professor returned—this time with four thick white bandages taped to the right side of his face, cuts peeking out as though something had lacerated his skin in many tiny, sharp pieces.

Skyfire was too stunned to keep himself from staring. The connection was like a red line drawn between Starscream's hand and their teacher's face, still intact after Starscream himself jabbed him in the ribs and ordered him around through the whole process, voice both quiet and harsh and his eyes glued to the test tubes in front of them. His hands, both bandaged and unbandaged, shook. When they jotted down the last of their results, Starscream bolted.

Leaving his equipment dirty, Skyfire threw the last of the stuff into his drawer with a messy tinkle and a crunch—he broke a test tube, surely—and ran after him. He got out in time to see the other boy round a corner, then sprinted down the hall after him. It was ten minutes before passing period. The hallway was deserted, thank god.

"Starscream. Starscream!"

To spite Skyfire's quickening footsteps, Starscream kept walking, then walked faster, stride stiff. When Skyfire caught up, he reached for the other boy's arm—his right arm. No sooner had he grabbed it than Starscream jerked his hand free and turned around, holding his arm close to his chest.

"Look what you did! You… idiot!"

Blood welled through the crisp white bandages: just twisting the arm made the cuts on his wrist break. Skyfire just looked up at him, still breathing heavily.

"You threw the beaker in his face," he managed, voice thick.

"He tried to fuck me," Starscream snapped, eyes locked on the bloodying bandages.

For a cold split second, Skyfire saw it: their teacher losing patience and trying to grapple the young man down against a shelf; Starscream twisting like a caught snake and grabbing the closest thing and smashing it over his face. The young man shook the horrible image away and said the only thing he could. It was the one thing that would have kept Starscream from even having to defend himself like that, if he'd just _listened_.

"I told you you shouldn't have. I told you it was dangerous."

"Fuck you," Starscream responded; his cold, reflexive tone baffled Skyfire, because it spoke of nothing more than instinct. He seemed as distant from the happening as Skyfire himself.

"Why—_how_ could you think—" he began, but he was asking the wrong questions. He couldn't bear clawing through the other boy's twisted logic, questioning his motives for destroying himself, so he just shook his head, finally raising his voice to practically fill the empty hall. "Why did you even come to me? Why did you even come to me if you aren't going to _listen_ when I try to help you?"

Starscream looked up at him, eyes blazing, arm bleeding.

"Simple. Because you have no voice and no ears with anyone who matters in this school," he hissed through his teeth, straightening his book bag over his shoulder. "No matter what you say about me, no one will believe you. Ever."

The ingenious, cruel sense of it all—of how he had been used--hit the older boy just as Starscream turned on his heel and stalked away. He retreated clutching his bleeding arm under his jacket, so no one would see the blood staining his reputation, and was gone. Next Wednesday, Skyfire completed the final experiment alone, with his partners' goggles and lab jacket still folded in the cabinet. It was the last he saw of the other student in the marble halls of Iacon Academy.

Five years and a double-degree later, Skyfire turned off his chemical hood and pushed his goggles up as Starscream leaned against the opposite wall of his personal lab, smirking as his long fingers plucked at the gold pin glinting on his tie.

"Work for me."


	33. Blind Seduction

A/N: Mail-order inspired by a piece of Black-Panda-Chan's artwork. Extended version found on AFFnet :D

Sexually frustrated Megatron is barrels of fun. There's an implied gap in this piece, and its because of me editing for naughty parts. HOOHOO.

_Characters: Megatron, Starscream_

_Pairings: Megatron/Starscream_

_Warnings: Epic frustration, language and LOTS of sexual content/references. Also, I realize that the glimpse into Screamer's teenybopper past catapults him into the 'absolutely despicable character' category, incapable of arousing even fangirl sympathy, but there is still muuuuch more to come._

* * *

Blind Seduction

* * *

One of the primary problems with Starscream, Megatron was soon to realize, was not his irritating voice or his whining, ungrateful nature, or even the increasingly bold attempts to unseat the very man who employed him day-to-day…but rather, that the infamous Seeker brat _strutted_ without even realizing it.

The irritating auditory pollution of his voice, reciting stock trends or predictions for competing companies, quickly quieted to a drone whenever Starscream cocked his hip and eased forward like a woman coyly displaying cleavage, tapping his manicured nails—claws, really--on Megatron's desk. His sharp eyes roved over whatever he was reading, intelligently and with purpose, but his trim waist and white throat drew his President's eyes more than any brightly-colored chart tossed his way. Even worse was when Starscream, usually seated a few seats down from his superior during a board meeting, twisted at the waist and toyed with his hair, perhaps sucking on his lip before licking his fingertips (a sliver of pink tongue, a moment of lidded eyes and wet lips) to turn a page.

In such little moments of casual insanity, Starscream manipulated his nemesis befitting his reputation.

The sight made Megatron's gut tighten, his palms sweat. It gave him a gripping physical response that none so far had gained by perusing papers in front of him. He was not a young man, and had acquired preferences all the more complex for his years: it took far more (and often far less) than the sight of a nude body to arouse him, but this was plainly ridiculous.

What was more, the brat caught him looking sometimes. Then, as if drawing off some velvet instinct long since trained away by some cataclysmic event, Starscream shifted like a leggy 1950's pin-up vixen and dealt him a blazing gaze, lips parted slightly. Fingers against his throat, legs spread.

Simply to say, wouldn't you like to undress me?

In a second, it was gone. Like he had been drenched with a bucket of cold water, back was his arrogant, defensive little Seeker, cringing within his pretty skin and pulling his mauve coat tighter around himself. Then he sneered, perhaps that the older man would even think himself fit to _look,_ and turned back to his work as one runs into a sanctified church to escape a demon—a grey-eyed demon who continued to watch his every move, and could never chase the image from his mind.

Though Starscream had apparently sworn never to use sex appeal to secure success again, he had so long tailored his every movement to be sensuous that he could not shake the habit. Too often, he was caught off-guard, or simply felt beautiful and desirable and powerful in his element and therefore _strutted_: he certainly radiated a certain smug, sensual superiority standing at the forefront of the boardroom, presenting whatever needed a presentation. He was unable to hold back that alluring radiance even when half the audience were his own kin, all five summarily disgusted by the sight of him flaunting so openly in front of their silver-haired President.

Was it any wonder they all suspected what had not actually occurred? If only Starscream, ever-superior Starscream, knew that he dug his own grave in the rumor mill… There were many opinions, but foremost were the scornful accusations that Starscream kept his position in the company by assuming another position in bed after hours. Then again, Megatron did not spare any effort to correct their whispers.

The worse their opinion of his treacherous Second, the better—only when Starscream relented and swore himself in good faith would Megatron clear his name. If he could order his men to kill, then he could order them to respect Starscream. Otherwise, he mused, it would most likely never happen. Starscream, so wrapped in his own ambition and his own world, did not realize that a coup was only appreciated and its results successful when the leader was a tyrant and the daring soul had support.

Tyrant he may have been, Megatron was nothing if not respected and Starscream was a farce of a shrieking, self-righteous lone ranger, unknowing of the instant revolt he would face should he actually succeed in toppling the older man.

Still, they had made some progress together. Starscream no longer pretended to adore him—he left that sad act to Sunstorm and instead had traded his sycophantry for open bickering. Annoying, yes, but more straight-forward. Any increase in efficiency was to be appreciated at that point, and when Starscream had his lip curled and was whining for all he was worth about some petty incident, stripping the brat naked and fucking him senseless against his desk suddenly became far less appealing than punching him in the mouth.

Balance: how any sane entrepreneur maintained his sanity.

As much of a nuisance as the Seeker could be, the older man always hung on those flashes what Starscream had been before, curiosity piqued. Megatron could see it so easily: a slim, conceited young peacock in dress slacks and a tight-fitting navy Iacon sweater, catching older mens' eyes before turning and sauntering away only to display the way those slacks fit at the back. He had been a user, powerful in his own way. A little god—a minor succubus with a loose-fitting tie and pink lips, but still, a deity, capable of rendering mortal men's knees weak if they were at all capable of imagining a porcelain ass and high-pitched moans.

Megatron wanted him intensely in those moments, which were always inopportune and inevitably occurred mid-meeting. The fact that he had managed little more than a chaste kiss with the brat was a sore spot. Even more sore was the fact that he knew—_knew_—that Starscream held something more than disgust for him.

It was a red instinct, the same as that coquettish stroll or the hand on his own throat. The Seeker pulled away far too quickly or paused a second too long in his superior's hard grip, something unidentifiable and frightened flashing on his face before the habitual, cleansing anger surfaced. It was much too far along to be _surprised_ by his advances. The only surprise could lie in the fact that Starscream found himself aching to respond again and again and _again_.

The urge to wrench a true reaction out of him was at an all-time high when his Second turned on his heel at the front of the darkened room and swirled his fingers down his tie with a smug smile, other hand on his hip.

"As you can see, this delicate situation can easily be turned in our favor with a stock bait-and-switch. We can freely proceed with the original Beta plan, which, while causing something short of pandemonium in the independent market, would—"

Those hips, goddamn it, _those hips_. Pinned against the back of his chair with a slide-show in front of him, Megatron breathed into his callused hand, feeling as though he were being slowly choked by his own incredulity.

Why on earth did his mother teach him to strut like a floozy showgirl? And why the _hell_ had he allowed the whole brood of them to wear such tight pants? He could see—damn it, what _couldn't_ he see?

Already, the President had been forced to shuck his suit jacket and roll his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. The flat, hard plane of his muscled chest radiated heat and he ached to loosen his red tie. He hadn't heard half of the brat's words and what he had heard simply sounded like another overly cocky plan that would blow them wide open, convincing him that the far better plan was to pay attention to Starscream's long legs instead of his slide show. He would have a transcript of the meeting later.

"Sir? President?"

Megatron realized that 'later' was in fact 'now' when that awful squawking stopped and the majority of the room turned their eyes on him expectantly, all with varying expressions of impatience. Waiting for him to destroy his Second's foolish plan and send him yelping from the room for his impertinence. Instead, pausing a second in his chair, Megatron cleared his throat and took his glasses off. Rising, he gave the normal parting orders for the part of the presentation that he had _heard_, then dismissed them all—all but one.

"Starscream," he said sharply, halting the Seeker where he had minced over to gather his papers. His Second looked up as the lights came back on, expression quizzical. "You will remain behind. I need to speak to you."

The rest of them filed out immediately, trading looks that were faintly disbelieving. Was he actually going to discuss the suicidal plan further? Megatron let them sit on their suspicions, as always, very teeth seeming to vibrate with irritation as he waited for the room to empty.

Starscream, still riding his high, had the gall to roll his eyes and lean up against the long table. Plucking at his papers, he paid the President no mind until the older man was pressed flush against his backside, one hand flat on his chest.

"Dinner. Tonight."

It was a growl, dangerous and guttural—what state this boy brought him to, animal or cromagnum, he would never know. These moments when biology and fixation crashed and swelled, he had no mind for anything but the Seeker. The invitation, blurted, was a bid to get closer to him, even as he knew that a frustrating, silent span of communal eating would only inflame the urge.

Sitting in front of steaks and trading glares was not even close to what he wanted to do to Starscream—especially when Starscream wouldn't even do him the honor of conducting a conversation befitting his Second's true intelligence. The President bent to put his cheek to his dark hair, inhaling trendy, musky cologne and tracing the ripple in the young man's back as Starscream straightened in alarm.

"I'm busy," he said sharply, but his attempt to move out of Megatron's grasp was countered by a harsh stiffening of the older man's arm, trapping him against his front.

"That's an order, Seeker," Megatron hissed into his neck, every red muscle aching with the flirting, toying, teasing that he had endured at the unwitting hands of the imbecile in his grip. Every time he had held himself back, or worse, been unable to even get a grasp on Starscream left a tiny stripe on his muscles, scarring him and building on the bile that began to rise the night he was so openly refused.

But he was a man who was nothing if not self-controlled. Controlled and patient. Megatron forced himself to lower his voice until it was a velvet timbre.

"As I said, I have something to… discuss with you."

He noted with some satisfaction that Starscream's heart had begun to pound. Megatron drew his nose across the back of the young man's neck, pressing his hips into the Seeker's backside. He _felt_ Starscream twitch into him before his Second grasped his arm tightly and dug his nails into Megatron's bare forearm, entire body freezing to counter the heat and hardness against his back.

"As much as I appreciate being in your professional confidence, _sir_, I have an appointment and I doubt the management of the Benton company would appreciate it if an extra guest arrived to their executive dinner without warning," Starscream intoned without emotion, eyes fixed on the wall ahead of them. "They expect you in an hour. I assume you have a car waiting."

Megatron scowled into his neck, teeth clicking together. He was not about to press closer and whisper _tomorrow_—half because he was the President and he didn't resort to anything close to begging, and half because he knew he was scheduled tomorrow as well.

For a moment, there was silence. Due to a weight heavier than his own desires, he let his arm go loose. Starscream pushed it down and Megatron knew his inferior would not deign to look back at him on the way out.

"My proposal is still open," the older man said when Starscream reached the door, causing his Second's hand to freeze on the handle. Megatron's tone was as dark as his expression. "You would do well to reconsider, Starscream."

Megatron watched with clenched fists as Starscream stared unseeingly at the door for a slow second—the exact amount of time he always waited before twisting away when caught in the older man's arms--then jerked back into motion and strode out with a definite air of nervousness. The door closed after him with a deep boom. After the sound faded, the older man returned to his head chair and eased into it heavily, one hand to his forehead.

As if of its own accord, his free fist slammed on the table and he sat back, breathing tensely in his empty black marble boardroom. Once more denied.

Leaning back into his chair, his knotted body cooling muscle by muscle, Megatron thanked whatever god existed that Starscream had changed. It was difficult plying a frigid egomaniac, even if at times it was as enticing a game as he had ever played and the glimpses into the creature Starscream used to be wouldn't have been half as enticing without that harsh contrast. If Starscream truly _used_ himself now, however, and twisted hips and dragged fingers down his chest with the full effort with which he futilely nicked high-security papers… Megatron actually might have succumbed.

The best ironies were the ones that kept one from financial ruin and mental slavery to a waif. To be within Starscream's sadistic power would be equivalent to the seventh circle of hell. This state of frustration, however, could not go on for long. Starscream would be his--and lucky him, the Seeker had spurned the only weapon that could have possibly conquered his superior.

As for now, he had dinner in half an hour.


	34. Frequency

A/N: Thanks to Itsu-sual for this idea, wunnerful bebe :P And for Onyx for prodding at me to finish it.

Soundwave has no standards. Shockwave doesn't care about anything. THEY ARE MEANT TO BE. But now I see Soundwave following Shockwave around like a rumpled, depressed little puppy, which is a little disturbing.

I also apologize for the crap characterization. This was an experiment, and I don't exactly like the outcome. Lots of flashbacks, but it goes in present-past-present-past order.

_Characters: Soundwave, Ravage, Shockwave, Megatron, Rumble and Frenzy_

_Pairings: none (strange Soundwave-Shockwave friendship, and adorable Soundwave-Rumble-Frenzy bonding)_

_Warnings: Soundwave's story is lamely tragic? Again, I like molesting TFA canon, so this one was fun to play with (RUIN, YOU MEAN, OH GOD I FELL BACK ON THE BIGGEST SOUNDWAVE STEREOTYPE EVER), and gives him a reason to be so gaddamn depressed._

… _My god, is he depressed. And NOT evil. This will come to a head one day._

* * *

Frequency

* * *

One day, Soundwave's world went from a moderately well-organized and glum cadence of duty to a trashpile of panic in approximately three seconds.

The cause? His darling cat, currently purring expectantly up at Shockwave where the pale Englishman stood in the middle of the communications office, returning her stare with one of his own.

It had begun simply enough. Shockwave had dropped in to make a last-minute readjustment on a conference script and hand him some paperwork. Ravage was curled in the communication-officer's lap as usual, purring too quietly to be heard. Soundwave had scooted the chair up a little closer to his desk, well aware of the legal repercussions of being caught with his pet—especially by Shockwave, who practically enforced every rule D-Con claimed. Most such rules were unofficial, but made and enforced in one way: by the gun. Far too many men had simply not shown up to work the day after committing some grievous error for Soundwave to suppose (or conduct himself) differently.

The two men made the exchange quickly enough, but instead of waiting patiently as she always did when a stranger was in the room, Soundwave's darling cat actually _jumped off his knees _and, after a bit of wriggling, trotted over to sit at Shockwave's feet, tail waving hopefully.

It took every ounce of control Soundwave had not to jump to his feet. It was the man's constant fear incarnate, and the sight wrenched at his rather weak innards, driving his heart to a rapid flutter. He didn't know what to do. Pretend she wasn't his?

Frozen in his chair, Soundwave simply watched as Megatron's prize employee and receptionist stared down at the cat, face blank, then reached down and picked her up.

It wasn't the most skilled of holds—Shockwave held her as if he would hold a vase or a gun, too far away from his chest—but it worked. After a moment, the thin man ran his long white fingers down her inky silken back and Ravage purred as if she had no idea who held her and how strong those fingers were: they had snapped necks twice her girth and gouged out eyes.

Soundwave clenched his teeth behind his vocalizer and watched anxiously. Inwardly, he waited for the tiny snap of vertebrae and a repetition of the Lord's order not to keep pets, ending with a broken still-warm corpse flung on his desk. Nothing of the sort happened.

Shockwave stroked the cat for a moment, neither smiling nor frowning, then put Ravage down and left without a word.

When there was no immediate summons to the President's office—Soundwave knew the other man was inhumanly efficient and the summons would have occurred the moment his office door closed—the communications officer was able to breathe again. Still, he continued the rest of the week on edge, knowing someone else to be in on his (fairly wide-spread) secret. When Shockwave came into his office again, Soundwave was determined to act as if nothing had happened. It was a plan cruelly foiled when Ravage hopped off his lap _again_ and beelined for the man.

"Ravage, desist," he protested in his grating electronic tone, but Shockwave stared down at her, possibly for the exact same length of time as before, and picked her up again.

Again came the same functional hold and the same little scratches behind the ear. Soundwave watched helplessly, nearly paralyzed with the awful feeling that the double agent was waiting for him to make a wrong move. He had never had much contact with Shockwave outside of meetings: in fact, he never considered the other man as much more than the ever-present shadow he left behind the President. Now, the same ridiculously loyal shadow was _petting_ a direct violation of company rules.

When it happened a third time, however, Shockwave actually sat down in an office chair to hold Ravage in his lap, quiet as a statue. Seeing this, Soundwave finally calmed down and was able to continue with his work. It was ten minutes of rerouting calls and logging information before he got up the bravery to speak and interrupt the strange, implicit truce between them.

"Query: Shockwave appreciates felines?"

"Marginally," Shockwave responded after a moment, flicking Ravage's ear and watching her rattle her head and sneeze. In anyone else, it might have produced a smile, but Shockwave watched her with the air of a scientist recording reactions to stimuli. Still, he continued petting her until she stretched, yawned theatrically and wandered back to her master, then he rose and left.

After the door snapped shut, Soundwave paused with his large gloved hand over his touch-screen and wondered over that word: marginal. It was so very dispassionate, but then, that was the way Shockwave functioned. Apathetic and efficient. He had never seen any sort of emotion on the other man's face, not a smile or a frown or even surprise.

To be even one inch over the line of 'uncaring', then, was something of a victory. Shockwave, in his own way, _liked_ cats.

Considering the other man as a human for perhaps the first time, Soundwave wondered further if the double-agent truly appreciated anything—that is, if he had anything he looked forward to day to day. Perhaps he was content with his work, but how would it be to live without a passion? Something that, no matter what, provoked a smile?

Unusually troubled by the thought, Soundwave plugged his head-set in and returned to his President's work.

* * *

Music was his life.

He loved any music and all music: old, new, genre, acoustic, all of it _spoke_. Those days, music was inseparable from tech and so techwards Soundwave drove, one hand on a disc, the other knuckle-deep in circuitry. All the way from eighteen, he was a programmer and a wires-and-circuits MacGyver laboring in the belly of a rapidly developing Detroit who had a bottomless need of bright, insane kids like him.

Eventually, he became a regular (if eccentric) tech guru who had been featured in not a few humble side-boxes in magazines like Wired by the time he was twenty. The spot-lights were for little projects that pushed the boundaries of what technology considered possible—which was exactly what he was hard at work on at twenty-five, save in a way that would take the auditory experience to the next dimension.

In between singing in a men's church choir—he was only vaguely religious, but who couldn't love the buttery acoustics of fifteen rich-voiced males serenading steepled stone?—and spending hours drowsing in the beautifully retro twang of the Beatles, Soundwave inexorably crashed into the idea of fusing the two most important things in his existence for the ultimate experience. Music and technology.

He hardly knew what direction he wanted to take it, granted, but after months of intensive experimentation (and many, many cups of happy-ramen), Soundwave produced a hand-tailored frequency that could be layered over any song. It was something of an auditory virus, and caused every technological item in the nearby area to broadcast the song as best they could. Using it, he had been able to make a clock keep a simple base-beat with its alarm tone; a more exotic experiment had even coaxed synchronized movement out of a window drone.

The more and more he prodded at the net of technology that cocooned humanity, the more impassioned Soundwave became. The frequency would make everything in the immediate area into one living circuit, and combined with truly awe-inspiring music.... The idea of that much synchronization left him shaking. It wouldn't matter anywhere but Detroit, because of its wealth of automated robots, but at that moment it felt like he had found the missing link between humans and technology—the hidden rhythm of the city itself.

Eventually he talked his usual club into letting him try it out on a slow night, promising a new experience for a new decade. Of course, once word got out that there was to be something of a technology exhibition at Club105, the building was packed to the walls.

That night, Soundwave's fingers slid attentively over every inch of his technology tower, adjusting and perfecting levels and tracks almost lovingly, pausing only to look down at the mass of people a few feet below him. He loved the look of a crowd riling for a new experience, young grins lit by the glowsticks in their neon-colored drinks. All were ready to have their limbs and minds synced by the same beat.

"You got another show for us?" the regular DJ—a very attractive young lady with a faux-hawk—asked, leaning over the complex array of disc-jockeying controls and poking at his arm.

"More than that," he grinned shyly, eyes on the floor--unknowing of how right he was.

* * *

"Query."

The next week, figuring that the fourth time was a charm, Soundwave got up the courage to interrupt the silence within the first few minutes.

The 'query' was going to be something akin to _what do you like to do for fun_, because the somewhat idiotic 3rd-grader thought wouldn't leave Soundwave alone, but Shockwave's expression (or hole-drilling lack of one) immediately made him change his tune. For all the other man knew, Shockwave might not even _exist_ outside the high-rise. Did he sleep beneath Megatron's desk?

No, it was an insulting thought, but Soundwave knew instantly that the man's apartment, wherever it was, was as stark and unwelcoming as a white-washed wall. The bed was probably the only thing touched in the entire place. The fridge, empty; the cabinets, bare. What in the world did Shockwave do with the salary he secured from their President--what in the world drove him?

"Motivation for appreciating felines?" Soundwave irked out, grateful for the lack of inflection afforded by his vocalizer. It was almost as inane a question as his previous one, but not quite. Movement visible only by an electron microscope, Shockwave's brow raised slightly.

"Cats are self-sufficient. Hunters," he answered shortly, long fingers rubbing up Ravage's exquisitely pointed ears. "If one is to keep a pet, best it not be dependent."

It was a simple statement, but the other man's resigned tone spoke volumes. Shockwave had very little time to keep a pet, obviously—and what was more, if he were to die in service to the President, it would be inconvenient to have the animal starve to death because he was not there to care for it. He was fully acclimated to the idea he might be shot any day.

Shaken in a way his monotonous desk-bound office life had not prepared him for, Soundwave watched the other man leave for the fourth time, unable to help but feel a tad causelessly lonely and wonder when he might be back. Or, even more mysterious, why.

* * *

The club was a warm, thriving black hole, starred with glowing cell-phone screens.

He started out with a few of his favorite mixes, just to get the crowd warmed up. Soon they were jostling each other, bouncing high on their white pleather heels and waving their glowsticks in the air, flinging red-yellow-green-blue droplets of alcohol everywhere. Humans were part of music. What would a song be, siphoned into an empty room without girls and boys to add the base beat of their pumping blood to it? When Soundwave was ready, he directed a blue light in a sweep of the whole club, drawing all those young eyes toward him, encased in his electronic castle.

"The revolution begins now," he boomed into the microphone.

It echoed through the crowded club, resplendent in a sci-fi mechanical filter, and the boys and girls of Detroit screamed their excitement, making him grin like the fool he was as he secured the last latch of the predator-esque looking device around his thick neck. He was not there to sing—his lamentable self-confidence wouldn't allow it—but only to add rich harmonization when the song allowed. Anything to enhance the music. Soundwave cleared his throat and it echoed like a gunshot; he quailed slightly behind the DJ's table, face reddening to match his visor, and several people laughed.

Soon enough, he turned down the mix and the crowd went quiet, very skin vibrating to make up for the lack of music in the air. From the moment he stared _the_ track, Soundwave could feel the frequency raise the hair along his arms. This was evolution. This was fusion.

Red and yellow lights reared up towards the ceiling, and the base-beat began. The frequency took hold like a sticky spiderweb, snagging and snaring invisibly, with a strength five times that of steel.

Boom, boom, boom—kids jolted and snatched their cell-phones out of their pockets, every single model vibrating in time as they watched with uncomprehending grins.

An older man noticed the ancient jukebox in the corner lighting up in-sync a moment before the club's cleaning automaton stumbled into the middle of the crowd and stamped from foot to foot, creating a raucous roar of applause as people realized that their watches, PDAs, and electronic glasses were all flashing with the rhythm, wrapping them in excitement that was so much more than the sum of its tiny, impassioned parts.

Boom, boom, boom; it went on and Soundwave crooned every so often, skin prickling as the deep vibration spread through the room as if through syrup. Several minutes of auditory ecstasy passed before Soundwave realized he could hear some beats coming out of tune, beats of a tinny nature.

Frowning, he fiddled with a few dials, wondering if the frequency could be glitching. Then he looked up to see the crowd buckling around the main entrance, where a few people were being forced away from the large metal door. Mouth open, he stared as a skinny automaton limb shoved in, making a woman recoil with an unheard shriek as a man shoved himself up against the door, trying to block it out.

The crowd upfront danced on passionately, unawares and saturated with their red and yellow fever lights, but Soundwave's eye fell on the circle that had cleared around the cleaning droid and what he saw chilled him. The skinny droid, single optic flashing in time, was crushed against his console, walking blindly forward and forward and forward to the boom-boom-boom like a wind-up toy mouse against a wall.

Something slammed against the back stage door, close enough to make him jump, then the trash droid broke through the main door, plowing over the legs of a woman. Soundwave gestured frantically to security, horror building as he realized he could feel the buzz of the frequency like a fluid in the air, self-replicating, unstoppable and rising awfully.

The music was too loud. Another horribly rhythmic booming sound came from behind him, followed by the signature click and rattle of more trash droids pressing dumbly against the door. Someone opened a window and window cleaner drones spilled in like nubby metal rats, suckers pop-pop-popping on the concrete. Suddenly, the entire tiny club was creaking from the weight of all the bots pressing and slamming at its doors and windows and roof-tiles, and the panic spread like the revelry had: quick and red-lit and fueled by screams.

Trash droids were trying to crush in the door, people were screaming louder and louder: all of the automatons on the block were convulsing and converging and he was the eye of the storm. Window cleaners desperately threw themselves on the panel and still the cleaner droid walked, walked, walked.

"Please, everyone stay calm—" he begged, but the sonorous boom only added to the terrifying cacophony so he dropped to his knees and tried to _stop_ it. It should have been but a few flicks to shut it off, but the control panel itself seemed possessed, humming to the beat in an unnatural way that no amount of button-mashing could cure.

It was indeed evolution: this was something beyond wires, beyond electronics, and it frightened Soundwave to his bones.

Paying no mind to the metal device stinging his throat as it slowly overheated, Soundwave slapped at any control he could reach and tried every direct override he knew. Guilt cramped his insides as the screams rose, unknowing if they were from fear or pain. At last, hysterical with the metal chaos raging around him and the itch of the frequency on his skin, he finally ripped off a panel and grabbed for a bundle of wires, but a huge gush of sparks came pouring out and an explosion flung him back against the wall and the chaos simply stopped.

Soundwave heard nothing, and for once he was relieved.

* * *

"Query."

Shockwave's look was almost forbearing this time—or perhaps Soundwave couldn't help but project emotions onto so blank a face, just to give him a human appearance.

One could make up stories about the pale, silent man all day, implying a whole range of thoughts and experiences that, presumably hidden, simply weren't happening. It was an ugly compulsion, but also a thoroughly human one—why else did poets personify forces of nature? Why did Sumdac feel the need to give an anthropomorphic appearance to any droid whose function would permit it?

It made humans comfortable, to see their own image in inhuman things—and it made them excruciatingly uncomfortable to see a human with no human characteristics. That said, Shockwave still unnerved him. Horribly.

"Motivation for entering employment of President."

Shockwave's hand slowed. Ravage mrowed questioningly, pushing her head underneath it until Shockwave resumed stroking her.

"The President… assisted me a number of years ago," Shockwave answered, single eye lidded and locked on the warm cat curled in his lap. "That event caused me to enter his service initially, but I remain employed for other reasons."

Hearing (_imagining_) some sort of hair-pin tension in the other man's voice, Soundwave did not ask after those reasons, and Shockwave did not bother to return the violation of privacy. The other men and women that happened to fall under Megatron's expert boot were of no concern to his closest employee, and neither were their stories. Perhaps realizing that he had inadvertently (if apathetically) broached some unspoken rule of their secretive society, the thin man rose calmly and left Soundwave to puzzle through what he had said—and what he hadn't.

Again, perhaps Shockwave found his current job fulfilling, but the facts remained the same. Megatron was able to initially contract him as a bodyguard and, if the rumors were true, a personal assassin because Shockwave owed him something.

_Don't we all_, Soundwave thought vaguely, and stared at his screen for a long, long moment before he began to work again.

* * *

When Soundwave came floating back to consciousness, he was laid flat in a snow-white hospital bed. The halogen lights above him buzzed and buzzed, an off-key G that made his skin itch, made his sore mind want to retreat back into nothingness. When he drew breath to ask a nurse where he was, big hand reaching futilely for his cell-phone in the pants he no longer had, nothing came out but a tortured rasp.

There was a huge lumpy suture over the front of his neck, still bristling with the stitches it took to piece his throat back together. It pained him every time he swallowed; his only relief was a numbing spray that tasted awful and left him nauseated. Red burns webbed his hands and lower arms. Within a few hours, he received the story.

For a span of eight minutes, automatons the entire city over had begun to malfunction, swarming at large toward a single location in downtown Detroit. Most of Soundwave's equipment had exploded from the overload, including the amplifier he wore. An electrical fire was the cause of the burns on his arms and it took minutes, he heard, minutes of hacking at the flaming metal amplifier casing before they could pry it off his bleeding neck.

He was permanently injured in that time-frame, if the initial explosion hadn't destroyed his voicebox and ruptured his larynx already. He could not speak. He could not sing. Most of all, he was under arrest.

The idea of anything being able to override Sumdac tech in such a dramatic way brought back the early 2030 fear-factor visions of machines overtaking man. If anyone could manage to mobilize the entire animatronic population of Detroit, they would have a metal army at their disposal. Soundwave tried to tell the FBI agents (through pieces of legal paper and jerky hand-writing) that he had no intention of doing it, that it was all an accident in the name of exploration, but they questioned him for hours about his intentions and still deleted all of his work, appropriated his remaining equipment and took the frequency for themselves.

From there on, he was gutted and restricted. If he purchased anything more complicated than a circuit board, the government would know—and come asking why.

'Just to be safe', Soundwave was put under house arrest for three months afterwards. It was too much time to dwell on what he had lost. For weeks, he hardly had the strength to get out of bed, much less put time and energy towards learning the skills that would put him back in the world. Writing on scraps of paper would only take him so far: sign language was simple, if heavy, a motion-by-motion surrender to his silent state. He couldn't even make himself a vocalizer because of his purchasing ban, and he certainly couldn't afford a commercialized one.

After being arrested and confined for so long, one could hardly expect to keep their job, especially at a phone company. Not even the programming companies he used to frequent would hire him, having heard only shady stories about his attempt and thinking him an idiot for even _attempting_ it. In the end, his only resort—and last surrender--was family. His sister offered him a place to stay in exchange for watching her two boys while she was at work.

Frenzy was a springy redhead while Rumble, similarly skinny, sported some kind of ruddy eggplant hue that was the direct result of trying to dye that same shade of red to blue. They were nine-year-old twin hellions and, if it was difficult trying to control them beforehand during all of those chaotic Christmasses and Thankgivings (_get your hands out of the mashed potatoes_ and _no, those aren't for throwing_), it was twice as difficult doing it without a voice. Soundwave didn't cope well with children in the first place, being a mixture of introverted and forbearing, but he never expected his existence to become so hellish with the simple addition of two physically harmless children.

"I'm bored, ma," came the drawl from the kitchen.

Soundwave was collapsed on the roll-out couch he used as a bed, navy hair mussed, breathing in slowly through his ruined throat. Listening.

"I've got an idea. Why don't you start looking at those books I gave you two?"

"But those are even boringer."

"More boring. You have to start somewhere, and, at this point, honey, you better be grateful to do what I ask you to. Anything I cook in that oven will taste like plastic for months."

They trampled him daily, but that day had been particularly awful: while he was sleeping off the previous night's insomnia, Rumble and Frenzy had gotten into some clay and attempted to hard-bake it themselves. They used a plastic tub as a pan in the oven and nearly set the kitchen on fire in the process. Woken by the shrill beeping of the smoke alarm, Soundwave burst in to heady gluts of smoke pouring from the oven and the smell of chemicals.

When he most needed to direct them, to demand where the fire extinguisher was, the two children stared uncomprehendingly at his hands and all of their rapid bird-movements. Finally, the ex-programmer tore the kitchen apart until he found the fire extinguisher himself and sprayed the oven down into a grey-foamed mess, happening to ruin a casserole that had been left out on the counter in the process.

A minute or three more and they all might have been ash, and the experience frightened the young man as much as it shamed him. To be so silenced, to be so miserably helpless. His sister was in the kitchen, after dressing Rumble down properly.

"Why do we hafta learn sign language?" Rumble whined, bouncing in his baggy shorts.

"To talk to your uncle," she responded firmly, no doubt on the floor scrubbing up her brother's lapse in attention. Bless her.

"Why would I wanna talk to him? He's boring."

"Rumble," his sister hissed, and he heard the distinct sound of a smack to the side of the head. Soundwave closed his eyes.

"He is! He's boring and he's lame!" Rumble smarted back, tone becoming incredulous. "Why is he here all the time anyways? Doesn't he have a job?"

After that, his sister sent the boy up to his room, but it did no difference. Soundwave, once a minor god of circuitry, was still a jobless, hopeless, homeless, voiceless man in his mid-twenties, and not even the Beatles could change that. He constantly wore turtlenecks to hide the gash in his throat, which was more than difficult since summer was in full swing, as were the gloves. The pain pills, once a small respite, were long-gone. A deep depression that had been lapping at his ankles rose before that to his calves, leaving Soundwave stranded for hours with his head in his hands as he listened to the in-out-in-out of his own ruined breaths, empty of inflection or note or tone or life.

Three weeks after his house-arrest ended, a man appeared at his sister's apartment without an ounce of warning. He was massive, and wore a grey silk suit and a prepared, cordial smile. Two cigars peeked out from his pocket.

"I would like to speak to you for a moment, Soundwave," the businessman began smoothly, hand on his blood-red tie.

Blinking a little in the sunlight, Soundwave looked mutely up at him, only regretful he couldn't return the favor. After viewing his visitor's credentials with a small nod, he led the man inside and sat him down, simultaneously relieved and worried when he immediately refused an offer of water.

"Thank you for your time. My contact informed me that an in-person visit would be required, and, regardless of the circumstances, I felt it appropriate to make the call myself." The man gave a near-dazzling smile and shook his hand. Soundwave almost winced. Though his hair was silver, his grip was better suited to closing down on throats than grasping hands. "My offer concerns your work, and how you may continue it."

The blunt, wonderful sentence only set Soundwave back for a second. Immediately, any hopeful thoughts were curbed by hard reality. His work? Impossible without the proper equipment—equipment denied to his person, not his job. Expression both sad and resigned, Soundwave began to scribble on his notepad, but the man put his large hand up.

"I am fully aware of the government check on you. I have, in fact, contacted the lower rungs of the FBI on at least three separate occasions in an attempt to have it lifted. There has been no success, but you will know that I spoke most ardently on your behalf."

Soundwave blinked with his pen frozen mid-word, a little chilled that someone could know so very much about him… or make so much effort on his behalf without even having met him. Megatron, as he was called, smiled that charming fox-smile again.

"But my colleagues and I… we have ways around that, and a great need of someone of your skill-set. I offer much more than employment, Soundwave, and I would be pleased if you would hear what I have to say."

Something--no, _everything_ told Soundwave he shouldn't have trusted that smile, but he was also desperate… and didn't have a voice to say no. He needed money, Megatron interpreted silence as agreement, and that's all there was to that. He was signed on within the week, and hard at work on designing his own vocalizer. Outfitted with his own office and a limitless tab at electronics suppliers, Soundwave began to smile again, completely unaware of the depths to which the man whom he regarded as his savior would take him.

* * *

Times like these, he felt like nothing more than rustling cloth in darkness. The feeling, dislocated and inhuman, was both a blessing and a curse. What he wouldn't give to be just another sound in an unlit city--another cog in a machine, incapable of personal choice or judgment.

"Gladiator, in."

"Cassette receiving," came the drone, gloved fingers poised on his keyboard.

"Relay following orders to field agent three."

"Relay received."

"Move package to stage four. Dispose of carrier."

Alone in his dark home office, lit only by the glow of the green display screen, Soundwave nodded stonily. If someone had chosen to carry illegally, and were fully informed of the risk… Soundwave still felt the weight of relaying the death sentence of another human being, but it wasn't absolutely undeserved, somehow. Or at least, that's the way he justified it to himself, whenever he couldn't bear the thought that he was actively participating in illegal activities.

Still, he managed to bear through such midnight calls… which came more and more often these days. If only Megatron had mentioned _this_ part of his duties before allowing him to sign off on what was more and more becoming a double life rather than a nine-to-five job. But what had the President said—that he offered far more than employment? He spoke the truth. It was Soundwave's fault for not taking him seriously.

He would get out of this one day. He would.

"Order received. Commence—"

"Expansion," Megatron's voice cut in, steely even behind three layers of disguising filters. "Dispose of carrier and immediate residents in location. Stage homicide. Remove evidence and plant a small number of guns."

Executing a criminal wasn't entirely outrageous. Killing a man's innocent family, however, was. Throat closing, Soundwave could not have stopped his voice any more than he could have stopped a cold black flood over a dam.

"Objection. Execution of family: unnecessary."

A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. This was not Megatron as Soundwave knew him. The man was subtle: cruel, but efficient and wholly unpartisan. Wholesale murder of an entire household just to ally suspicion was not his temperament. After arguments with Starscream, however…

"You will not argue with me, Soundwave," came the older man's near-snarl. Soundwave waited, prickling at the ears at the absence of his codename, for the President's deep, impatient breath before he continued dangerously, "and neither will I explain myself to you. Deliver the message immediately, in full detail. And send an invoice to Trineleader: he should be in my office the moment the doors open tomorrow, fully prepared to explain himself. Gladiator out."

The transmission cut off, leaving Soundwave cold and craving to be nothing more than a rustle of cloth in the dark of an unlit world.

* * *

Soundwave lost his voice when the kids were nine. He had been working with Megatron for three years since. He and his nephews' joint existence continued as keeper and kept (or rather, harassers and harassed) for a year of that time until, one fine September day, the rambunctious twins suddenly decided to love him.

Perhaps it began with the occasion that Soundwave proved his usefulness by sitting cross-legged on the living room floor with them and, with his signature quiet devotion, re-wiring an old game system that had since died on them. Regardless, they turned right round and suddenly he was their favorite—and only—uncle. He had since assembled his own vocalizer with the President's 'help', but the two provided for him anyways in a way that only shared blood and shared meals of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches allowed.

Rumble and Frenzy leaned sign-language only to argue with him, a common enough ploy for twin twelve year-olds, but it became useful to pass back gestures without ever once speaking aloud. He began to volunteer to care for them, little by little, and the day that his imps flatly, in chorus, refused to go to the zoo without him choked him up in a strange way. He, formerly doomed for the dentist's office, acceded and spend the day eating horrible food and watching Rumble and Frenzy mimic the chimpanzees with hedonist hoots and howls and gratuitous butt-scratching.

Watching them cavort and smack at each other, for the first time it didn't matter that, when he laughed, nothing came out. It mattered even less when they came barreling back to him and nearly gave each other a black eye to see who got to ride on his shoulders.

With his equipment once more lying around the apartment, they got into music. First, it was only little things, like that ridiculous Guitar Hero game from the very beginning of the century… then, obsessed equally with poking at cool buttons and harassing him, they would sneak into his 'control station' (his laptop and tower, surrounded by multiple speakers and tuners) at night and swap his entire media-player playlist. Their shenanigans always explained why he found Hannah Montana blaring in his ears the next day, leaving Soundwave equal parts exasperated and impressed that they had managed to transplant the original names of his previous songs.

They took to calling him 'Boss' as an affectionate 'cool uncle' nickname. Before long, they were shoving him onto their couch (his bed) and motioning frantically to _wait-wait-wait, Boss_ while Rumble fairly chewed at the microphone connection to get it to work, then performed a rap they'd thought up, complete with musical score. Soundwave was shocked and beyond pleased, clapping mightily after they finished. Asking for permission first, he took the original track to his computer; both of them clung like chimpanzees to his shoulders, absolutely frozen in anticipation of his technological wizardry.

When he made a slight adjustment to their base-beat and added a crescendo that would fit with their lyrics, they fairly piled on him, gibbering of his awesomeness, stealing his visor and pounding on his back… and he was forever accepted, forever Boss.

He was devoted to the two of them. They were absolutely unbearable sometimes, and he couldn't think to leave his cat with them, true, but they were his. He helped them out on their homework and anything else they needed, excluding girl troubles, as he'd never had much luck with the opposite sex himself. Since his own miraculous, somewhat weighty employment, his sister had fallen on hard times. Soundwave helped her out on her rent and stayed at her house more often than not: his own apartment seemed lonely without the kids there, more of a workshop than a home.

It was strange, how his life had changed, and when Ravage came into it, Soundwave found that simple happiness had settled down next to him while he wasn't looking. And honestly, he stayed employed where he was because of several _reasons_ (now Shockwave's vocabulary made more sense than ever) but he needed the money for his sister and the kids. And, of course, Ravage and her tomcat beau, the latter of which he didn't actually have to worry about _hiding_, which was a relief.

Scruffy Bradbury wandered in and out at his leisure, effortlessly avoiding the twins and often returning from the outside concrete jungle with a mouse-gift for his lady. The two cats had scratching posts, yarn toys, all that. They afforded Soundwave an equal twinge of silly jealousy and pleasure whenever he came in to see his two felines spooning in a puddle of warm wires, purring to match the grind of his nearby modem.

Secretly, he still hadn't given up on finding someone to build a wire nest with, but one thing was for certain: life simply wouldn't be complete without cats or screeching, raspberry-blowing nephews.

* * *

He could almost feel the cold of the marble underneath his feet. He could almost feel his bones.

"You failed to communicate my directions, Soundwave. You directly disobeyed my order."

Megatron's jury was small: it consisted of Starscream, Thundercracker, Shockwave and himself, all standing in the black-marbled boardroom on the 48th floor. The shades were open, letting in the cheery winter sunlight. It fell on the empty seats, begging the question of the tight cluster of men near the door, all standing in dead silence.

"It does not matter what resulted; it does not matter what was risked. My order is law. I do not tolerate insubordination of any kind."

The President himself was regarding Soundwave with the utmost of contempt, handsomely lined face blank to the point of inhumanity. He was a fine match for the man to his right, whose single eye was fixed on the man whose office he had haunted for the past few weeks—and the black cat that twined around Soundwave's legs, growling softly at the sight of the huge grey-suited man in front of her.

"Shockwave," Megatron called, hands clasping behind his back.

Soundwave went cold, went _dead_, as the tall, thin man stepped forward, a compact black gun already in his gloved hand. Starscream's dark eyes went wide and he tensed against his stockier brother, but Soundwave didn't bother to fear for himself: he knew the moment he had been ordered to bring 'that animal' that this was to be a demonstration, not an execution.

"Unneccessary," he said, so weakly, but whether he was referring to the averted deaths of two little girls and a wife (who had already lost a father and a husband, even now) or the gun raising toward his cat, he couldn't think. A look from the President's ice-grey eyes silenced him and he knew, then, the meaning of punishment.

The communications officer fought to keep his arms to his side; not to bow his head even as his heart pounded painfully, gut knotting. Shockwave paused, gun raised, almost as though reconsidering killing the small, sweet cat he had held. Then he stepped forward.

Fur prickling in a panic, Ravage cringed from the slap of his boot and scrambled out of the nearby door. Shockwave followed at an even pace, rounding the corner of the hallway.

The gunshot was so loud it made Soundwave's bones jerk.

All of his blood voided his body, leaving him floating and shaking. He breathed deeply inside his collar, trying to keep his face expressionless as the silver-haired man turned from the hallway—and the small smear of blood just out of sight, was she still twitching?—and looked him in the eye, expression empty even of satisfaction.

"This is a warning. Test my patience again and the consequences will be far greater. Intelligent souls, more particularly those with extended families, should mind their actions."

The boardroom emptied as a town square did after a public execution, all men filing directly to their posts or offices. The hallway outside was absolutely silent, except for the imagined sound of pooling blood. Soundwave made it all the way to his office before he fell into a chair and heaved out breath after breath, and the world never heard a silence so sad.

* * *

They came scrambling in to the living room, Rumble firing off the last vestiges of a nerf gun at his brother, who rolled under the coffee table and sprang out at just the right angle to chuck a pillow back at him. Hit square in the chest (and having the good grace to accept the killing blow), Rumble died dramatically, creating an impressive thwump in a nearby beanbag chair—one of the many crash sites afforded by their obstacle course of a living room. He revived just fast enough to tie Frenzy in his race for the couch, where they both piled up beside their uncle, already yammering excitedly.

"You're back early!"

"Hey Boss! What's up!"

"Guess what, Boss?" Frenzy goaded him, little chest puffed out. "I totally decked that doofus Ramhorn at school today."

"You totally did not, I did it first! I got first hit!" Rumble countered indignantly, swatting his brother's arm.

"Okay, so Rumble did it first but we both wailed on him and he was all like baw, baw, I'm gonna tell my da-ad—but it was totally okay because he started talking smack about Led Zeppelin and we were like _no way_--"

"Boss? You okay?"

Mid-stream, Frenzy's ramble petered off as he suddenly became aware of what his twin had already noticed: his uncle was sitting on the couch, but wasn't just sitting. He was slumping, silent, unmoving, with his head in his gloved hands. His visor was on the coffee table, his vocalizer right beside it, and his eyes were shut. A curious new chill took root in both the boys' stomachs; they stared at Soundwave, then at the room around them, trying to find something different that would account for their uncle's state.

"Did you get fired?" Rumble asked hesitantly, gnawing on his dirty fingernails. Soundwave shook his head, not even freeing his hands: unwilling to speak. Frenzy shrugged his shoulders, expression stymied.

"Wait, where's that cat? Did that old man finally catch it?" Frenzy demanded suddenly, then took a long, hard look at his uncle's slouch, his closed eyes, and drooped, whispering, "Dang, Boss."

"Dang," Rumble echoed as the news broke over him, voice a little weak.

After a long moment, the twins looked at each other, then quietly settled on either side of their uncle and nudged underneath his big arms. They pressed their little faces against his jacket, all uncertain sadness and upturned noses.

"It's okay."

"Yeah, it's cool."

"You can get a new one."

"There's a pet store downtown. We could go tomorrow."

Life had already taken his voice—the only thing left for grief to claim was his shaking fingers. Silent, Soundwave shook his head and squeezed both of their bird-bone shoulders, chest trembling as they leaned into him, adding their quiet to his. Some things were irreplaceable, and he mourned the day when they would have to learn that.

Until then, he would protect them the best he could—which now meant never crossing Megatron again, regardless of how many people died in the process.

* * *

It was only a matter of time before Shockwave walked into his office again, but Soundwave dreaded it with every bone in his body.

Cruelly enough, it happened the very next day. The knock itself was unmistakable, making the communications officer almost sick. Unlocking the door remotely, Soundwave immediately took a bracing breath and turned his head aside, trying not to hate the pale, unchanging face of the man who had killed his darling. As ordered.

It was not a personal urge, he tried (_tried_) to reason, and he knew where Shockwave's life lay. The other man would have even more to lose than himself, if he disobeyed the President. There was something between the two of them, something powerful and probably written in blood—and, as in all things, Megatron held the reins.

Shockwave halted in the middle of the room, a decent distance away for what he had done. Instead of offering him papers, however, Shockwave bent slightly and unbundled the coat he had under his arm—and out of it slipped a sleek black cat.

Soundwave shot to his feet, unable to help it. His very skin prickled, drawing him out of his own body in shock. It was impossible.

Options flew through his mind. Had the other man bought a new black cat? No: such a conspicuous kindness from Shockwave was actually less probable than a pile of bloody fur coming back to life. Hurrying from behind his desk, Soundwave went down to his knees as the she-cat ran up to him, tail waving anxiously.

He checked her face, the timbre of her purr—an intimate thing, for someone so attuned to sounds—and it was Ravage. Alive and purring, and visibly grateful to be back in his hands. Shockwave must have shot a blank, or shot something else. And directly disobeyed Megatron's order.

Eyes wide as the cat climbed into his lab with a certain relief, Soundwave looked up at the other man, who was watching the two of them without the slightest sign of interest, satisfaction or involvement. After a moment, Shockwave put his coat on and turned.

"Shockwave."

The man pivoted immediately at the summons, leaving Soundwave feeling rather caught under his dispassionate eye. At last, lost on what would mean the most in a grating electronic timber, the communications officer pushed his bulky vocalizer down, put one hand to his mouth and lowered it: the sign for 'thank you'.

Whether or not Shockwave understood, it was impossible to tell, but his eyebrow raised a fraction and he stared for a moment longer before turning on his heel.

"You owe me a bullet."

Soundwave watched him leave with a sense of awe, Ravage bundled tightly against his chest--unaware that he would repay the man seven years later.


	35. Runes

A/N: A few have asked why Lockdown got his tattoos: here ya go. Boring little snippet, mostly from Torque's judgmental POV :D

_Characters: Lockdown, Torque_

_Pairings: none_

_Warnings: Language. Lockdown is very creative with nicknames…_

* * *

Runes

* * *

It was midnight and the door creaked open like always. Clomp-clomp went his work boots against the wall, like always. The faucet hissed just enough to fill a glass, like always.

Torque half-not-really-waited for him on the couch, like always, curled up in the glow of a random History Channel special. Eighteenth century technological highlights. It was a routine by that point, immovable if not comforting. In fact, the only difference between that night and every other night of the week was when Lockdown stomped over to take his customary place on the _very-most-opposite_ side of the couch, he sat down and a spot of blood spattered on the back of his hand.

The red-on-white color-burst made it into Torque's periphery and she looked up sleepily, only to half-scream at the sight of the man sitting, beaten and bloodied, three feet away from her.

Lockdown was beaten to pieces, swollen and red and bruised—and that was only his face. What followed was an immediate scramble for white absorptive things like tissues and dish towels, and soon they were situated knee-to-knee on the couch as the tiny girl cleaned him up as best she could. Her roommate swayed back and forth a little, eyes glazed: he obviously got a bit kicked out of him that night, and she wasn't one to ask after it.

It had been difficult living with someone nine years older than her, an adult (twenty-nine) where she was just a kid—until the day she suddenly decided to start talking to Lockdown like the immature teenager he was and it went rather well from there. At times—times like these—she definitely seemed to be the more mature of the two, a fact which made her lip curl slightly as she wiped some fresh blood away from his chin.

It showed up like poinsettias on snow and just looking at it made her cringe. She didn't know why she was even being so gentle, as obviously he'd gotten all of his nerve-endings beaten in. She continued dabbing, working her way across his white skin and the fresh black ink that broke it.

"God, they're hideous," she muttered suddenly, glaring at the black claws on the top of his eyes. There were outlines below, on his chin, where two more black spikes would eventually sit. Lockdown blinked blankly at her; his brain-damaged stare only made her more irritated. "You realize that these tattoos are going to be on you for, like, ever. And you're altering yourself permanently for some split-second job."

"They say it makes me more marketable," he slurred, stumbling a bit on the long word. He put a hand to his head, wincing into it. "For the… fights."

"Yeah, figured they'd say something like that," she muttered, grimacing to herself.

The wackos down at the cage-fighting place must have been all-too happy to have a massive albino on their menu, much less one willing to mark himself up like a KISS fanatic-slash-barbarian hybrid if they paid for the tats. Lockdown muttered something about them having a name for him (blazing something) but she didn't pay attention.

She could understand rebellion, and there had been no access to tattooists parlors out in Calhoun, but this was ridiculous. The face was the only area where the new-age tattoos couldn't be lasered off—the area was too sensitive, and the radiation could damage the eyes, something the sight-impaired albino couldn't even begin to risk. Couldn't he settle for an ugly heart-and-'mom'-ribbon combo on his arm? Maybe, just maybe, something that wouldn't turn him into more of an outcast than he already was?

"I won, " Lockdown rasped after a minute, stupid grin stealing his bloodied and bulging face.

"Whoopde-fucking-doo. You want a gold star?" Torque snitted.

She hated the idea of him fighting. She hated the idea of anyone fighting. Even though he wouldn't invite her (they weren't, after all, anything resembling friends), she refused to go.

Getting yourself beaten to a pulp for money wasn't her idea of a good time, or a _business opportunity_, and she hated the senselessness of it, the pure screaming crash of testosterone. It made her nervous and sick. Later, that fear would lead her to take up Taekwondo (fat lot of good it would do her, except for some nicely toned thighs), but for the moment she couldn't even consider landing a punch on anyone.

"Heard girls ain't s'posd to curse so much," Lockdown growled after a moment, lip curling. He had obviously expected congratulations. He much preferred high-risk-high-gain situations as opposed to the slow daily grind of the minimum-wage jobs he was forced to take, and any money was good money. She should be glad: this meant he wasn't behind on rent.

"And I heard boys aren't supposed to screw other boys," she retorted, squinting as she wiped a nasty cut with alcohol. It bubbled and Lockdown hissed slightly through his teeth, sending her a vengeful glare. "Neither of us are church or country club material, so shut up and let me finish."

"Bitch."

"Asshole."

"Boot-wearin' muff-lickin' baby bull-dyke."

"What the—what the _hell_, LD!" she squawked, pawing angrily at her ugly inch-long hair: the impromptu product of one very frustrating that-one-chauvinist-coworker-wouldn't-leave-her-alone day at work and a pair of scissors. "You're real mature, you know that?"

His only response was a close-mouthed snarl, mostly provoked by another less-than-kind application (bitchy _splash_) of alcohol. After a minute, however, Torque sighed. Far be it from her to fret about the _adult_ sitting across from her (bleeding out his ears due to a very mature professional decision), but she still worried about Lockdown connecting with anyone.

Detroit was supposed to be an opportunity to get a _life_. He needed friends. Possibly boyfriends. The skin was enough, but with his size and the awful tattoos combined with his attitude… Who but the most intense of fetishists would dream of approaching such an imposing figure? How in the world would he ever find anyone that wasn't some sort of masochistic thrill-seeker?

"You know this is… making it really hard for people to, y'know, approach you," she said softly, smearing the last bit of dampness away with her thumb and searching Lockdown's pummeled face intently. Like so often, he paid her no mind. His eyes were elsewhere, narrowed and reddish and rimmed by ever-growing, rune-like black designs: his protection against the outside world, inscribed on his very skin.

"Good," he rumbled after a moment, rising to his feet and prodding at the bulge underneath his eyes before disappearing into the room that held his creaky third-hand mattress. "Don't want anythin' to do with people."

The door shut, and Torque went back to the eighteenth century with an unspeakably sad expression.


	36. Now

A/N: I know you didn't get to see how they grew and fell in love (and some of y'all expected to), but I figured this would be a nice run-in for LD :3 …Also, WHY must there only be THREE recognizable female transformers? Seriously? This is 4-srs cockblocking my attempts to expand the female cast.

_Characters: Lockdown, Hound, Mirage, SPESHUL GUEST_

_Pairings: Hound/Mirage, implied Lockdown/Prowl_

_Warnings: none except cuteness! Oh, such cuteness._

* * *

Now

* * *

The one thing Lockdown had come to terms with in his life was that, no matter what, people stared. Even before his tattoos, people stared; in stores and restaurants, in clubs and gyms, everywhere it was the same. Lockdown didn't give two shits about people, as a general rule, and thus didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to them… unless, of course, they didn't take the 'eye-contact' cue.

Mr Smock on aisle five of Triangles was not taking the eye-contact cue. Three times, Lockdown had looked up from his (Prowl's) shopping list and caught the husky, brown-haired man staring unabashedly at him, and three times Mr. Smock had looked down… and looked up _again_. By the time Lockdown heard footsteps behind him, his patience was shot. Couldn't a man choose between thin-wafers and crackers in peace?

"You got somethin' I can help you with, buddy?" he rumbled through his teeth, turning from the packaged goods to find the man standing a mere foot from him, the same surprised look on his face.

"I'll be damned," Mr. Smock said faintly, apparently too engrossed in the other man's face to notice the almost-instinctual tensing of Lockdown's white muscles. "It is you."

Lockdown glared at him, and kept glaring until the man said _his name_, drawing away warily. Then he recognized that Tennessee twang and that brown-fuzzed face in a single spasm of memories. The clean aisle of the grocery store did not fit with the sudden burst of hay-smell and the remembered creak of an empty wooden barn. Lockdown's mouth fell open slightly.

"Goddamn. Hound."

The two men stared at each other for a long moment, each struggling to make the other fit into their current reality. Lockdown shifted his weight, inexplicably uncomfortable with the fresh-faced thirty-something man staring at him like he'd seen a ghost. Averting his eyes, he asked the obvious question—the one that had put Hound here after dusty Calhoun, out of all the big and little cities in the USA.

"How the hell'd you get out here?"

"I, uh, moved. With my… " Hound swallowed, scrubbing at the back of his head. He was neatly trimmed and neatly dressed, though still sporting a roguish five-o-clock shadow. Same boy, just a man now. "Stayed in Florida for a little while then moved up here for a job. Got outta Calhoun 'bout the time you did. I heard you just jumped ship one night. 'Probly the smartest one of us, honest."

A sudden pause settled between them, growing more and more uncomfortable by the second. Hound cleared his throat.

"Pretty, uh… pretty hellish, now that you've got some perspective, ain't it?"

Lockdown nodded. Once it had been acknowledged that they'd both walked the same ugly dirt roads a thousand miles away, the older man couldn't help but be transported there briefly. He hadn't had a reason to remember Calhoun for a long time and the feeling wasn't pretty. He heard Hound take a deep breath beside him, and looked up in time to see him stick his hands in his smock pockets. Hound's handsome, down-turned face was twisted in a mixture of shame and regret and Lockdown knew what was coming before he even said it.

"Lockdown. I just wanna say that I'm… sorry. Real sorry."

_Ain't like you didn't have a choice_, Lockdown wanted to say, but he settled for shaking his head. It was a strange realization to know that he would have bitten into Hound a year ago, but he just didn't have the gall to now. Didn't see the point.

Yeah, he'd run with the crowd that had made his life hell, but he'd never thrown stones. Hound himself probably lived through a different version of hell, laughing along with the same spiteful folks he knew would turn and beat him bloody in a moment if they only knew. Life was hard all over. No use cutting each other up now that they were in the clear.

It was definitely Prowl talking in his head, unsurprisingly, but that didn't make it any less true.

"Doesn't matter. Done my best to forget anything that happened in that town," Lockdown grunted, harsh voice lightening a little once he realized he truly meant it. "What matters is we're here."

"Yeah. That's right, idn't it," the younger man said with a relieved smile, reaching up to muss absently at his hair again. The two of them stood, eye-to-eye, and simply felt all the differences surrounding them. All the space to move. Hound opened his mouth to speak again, but before he could, a voice came from behind him.

"Hound, are you ready?"

Lockdown looked up, past Hound's broad shoulder: a tall, pale-haired man was waiting with a bag on one arm and a little girl in a purple dress on the other. Hound grinned and gave them a nod, face immediately lighting up.

"Yeah, gimme a sec to shut'er down for the next shift."

"Daddy, git a move on," the little girl called, only to have her ponytail tweaked hard enough that she squeaked indignantly. The other man bent down with a disgruntled expression and gave her what sounded like a gentle correction in grammar or pronunciation ("Doesn't 'please hurry' sound better, angel?"). Hound nodded at Lockdown's utterly lost expression and gave a sheepish attempt at a smile.

"Raj is, uh… real insistent that Windy not start talkin' like me. He's real soft on everythin' else, but… no bones on that. Got her lined up to take speech coachin' or somethin'."

It took Lockdown a minute to figure out the simple logistics on the two people standing on the other aisle and the man standing in front of him. He and Hound had rolled together once, briefly and out of nothing more than necessity—now the grocer's son had a man, and, unless she was a loaner, a kid.

A kid. The thought blew his mind. Had they just walked in and asked for one? And the adoption place had just… handed her over to two men?

Lockdown stared at the little girl, held by one father and awaiting the other one anxiously, then looked down at Hound.

"How d'you know which one she's talkin' to?" he growled dubiously.

"If both of us answer her ever' time, there ain't a need to guess," Hound chuckled. He looked fondly back at little Windy, who was now smart-talking Mirage by the way she had her hands holstered on her hips. "She's pretty awful spoiled, but she'll grow out of it. Maybe. She's a firecracker though—can't make her do anythin' she didn't have her mind on before."

"Huh. Who's the mom?"

"Oh, well… y'know, both of us kinda… do whatever it takes to—" Hound began, somewhat doddering, but then realized the fearsome, tattooed albino in front of him was looking at him with a goading, rib-nudging expression, got the actual joke and sputtered, "Oh, Mirage. Hell, definitely Mirage."

Lockdown grinned what Prowl had always dubbed his 'dirty lecher' grin, giving a satisfied little nod. Their 'male' moment, sex joke and all, was complete. Hound chuckled a little once the shock passed—he had never seen Lockdown smile before that moment, even if it waned to something small and a little uncomfortable—and, after rocking to his toes for a second, the grocer offered his tan hand. Lockdown looked at it uncomprehendingly before taking it and shaking it once. It felt strangely good to make that simple, honest contact with a boy—man—he never thought he'd see again.

Felt good to see him alive and well. Functioning. Happy, for lack of a better term… especially when they'd long thought 'happy' was too high to shoot for, being a pair of queers in Calhoun.

"Anyways, it was good talkin' to you. I own this place—jus' this one, not the chain--so if you… need anythin' of the min'mal variety, you just lemme know. A'right, Lockdown?"

"Yeah," he answered vaguely, mind still stuck on the thought of kids. Kids and queers. _Little girls_ and queers. Then, when he actually _heard_ what Hound said, something Prowl said flashed through his mind and Lockdown gestured as the other man started to walk away. "Wait a sec."

Hound turned, waiting expectantly; Lockdown crunched his short-term memories, drowning in the lame feeling of being thoroughly whipped by a boy half his size… and fighting to remember something as sissy as herb names.

"Some, uh… some coriander." At Hound's mystified stare, the dockworker ran a hand over his skull with an air of impatience. "My guy cooks with it an he's been bitchin' that he can't find it anywhere."

"And he's cookin'…" Hound trailed off curiously. Lockdown shrugged.

"Dunno. Darlin's a vegan-tarian, whatever the hell that means," he huffed, rolling his eyes. "Startin' to sound more like Commie every day."

Hound blinked, then actually laughed aloud: it was a deep, nice sound, genuine and calm. It gave Lockdown a snapshot of his life, and he knew right then that anybody would be lucky to have half of what Hound had, regardless of where he came from. Hound took a pencil and a pad of paper from his pocket and jotted the herb down, then nodded at Lockdown with another slight chuckle.

"A'right, I'll get on that. You come back next week and I'll have word for you."

"Thanks," Lockdown made himself say, then immediately turned and walked away, towards the door.

He didn't leave, however. He lingered long enough at the end of the isle, out of sight, to see Mirage usher Hound out from behind the butcher's bar and kiss him, sweetly and fearlessly in the middle of a populated grocery store. The little girl tugged on each of their hands until they leaned down and pecked her on each cheek. She clambered into Hound's arms like a purple-frocked monkey and the pair carried her out, chatting adoringly over her head and, though Lockdown didn't know it, deciding on the location of their next picnic.

The door jingled and, along with the nice idea that maybe people _could_ leave a place like Calhoun behind, Lockdown was visited by a thought as brief as it was absolutely terrifying: would Prowl ever want kids?

Shit, he hoped not.


	37. Blue

A/N: Shameless canon-whoring here. Idea stolen with equal shamelessness from Pinkuh, who has an awwwwesome picture to go with it, look her up on Deviantart.

_Characters: Starscream-centric, brief Megatron_

_Pairings: harassy-cute MegatronxStarscream_

_Notes: snippet-type piece, gag-worthily artistic_

* * *

Blue

* * *

Everyone had to do _something_ to keep their figure.

Starscream was never too thrilled about anything that promised sweaty bodies crashing into each other, or the occasional black eye. Nor was he particularly excited about a sport that didn't offer an outlet for his ambition, like recreational jogging, which had to be the single-most painfully dull thing on earth. Luckily, Iacon Academy had every kind of sports team known to man (and some invented just for bragging rights), but only one, in the end, made it into the Seeker's heart.

It was perfect. Graceful, powerful, controlled. Solitary. It offered not just a 120-by-53 yard patch of turf but a completely different world.

He relished the soundless glide of clear water over his shoulders, dipping down his narrow back and cresting over his butt and legs. He loved the mobility: the quick rush of silky _force_ against every inch of his front as he somersaulted in the water and kicked against the side of the pool, speeding off again with his arms raised like a knife—or the nose of a jet—in front of him.

He even loved the pleasant airlessness. If there was anything he had learned in microeconomics, it was that anything that was limited was special. The laws of supply and demand made him re-appreciate both the healthy pressure in his lungs and the blue bowl he could only be in for a minute. Both were needed: both were rare.

This, he sometimes thought, was how it was to fly.

The air would be a medium, crystal blue and hyper-responsive, all around him. There would be currents: natural highways that spoke to his naked skin. The high quietness of the atmosphere mirrored the low peace of the deep sea and blue silence filled his ears, wonderful and thick, insulating and protective. Lulled by the paradoxical sense of complete freedom in his closed little fishbowl, Starscream swam and flew in turns, barrel-rolling in the warm pool only to cleave the surface with methodical slices of his arms, gaining speed only to coast again. Flying.

It was his exercise, his escape, and his dreaming time all in one—and every ounce of that grace and subtle wonder disappeared in a single second when Starscream broke for air at the end of a lap and saw two black Italian leather shoes on the edge of the pool, smack in front of his nose.

Starscream jerked away with a messy gasp, oh-so-precious water rushing into his mouth. His feet wind-milled helplessly in the deep-end as Megatron simply watched his previously graceful Second turn into a floundering imbecile with the simple addition of a superior officer.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he shrieked at last, hacking the chlorine away and popping off his dark goggles to glare up at Megatron.

"I missed your melodious voice," Megatron drawled, more than slightly amused by the puffy pink goggle-rings around the young man's eyes. It made him look younger than he already was, which Megatron couldn't decide whether he liked to chortle at or just _liked_. "I called a meeting ten minutes ago. You failed to answer your phone."

Starscream's phone lay back in the locker room of the downtown private gym he used to exercise—just where it should have been, locked away and unheard for twenty-four hours.

"It's my day off!" he protested before he could stop himself, grasping the edge of the pool and gaping up, _very_ up, at his boss.

"And?" Megatron prompted him glibly, a fluffy white towel already draped over one arm. He looked the very image of some sort of old, expectant butler and Starscream took a moment to spitefully cherish that image—the President serving him tea and crumpets before assuming a kneeling position so Starscream could comfortably rest his feet on his ridiculously wide back--before sullenly knocking his head against the side of the pool.

"And why didn't you send one of your drooling lackeys if your meeting was so goddamn important?" Starscream muttered to himself, knowing the answer well enough. Heaven forbid Megatron dismiss a chance to torture him. The old man was sniffing out his every hiding place, one by one: now even the gym wasn't safe.

Resisting the urge to splash sour chlorine water on those perfect Italian shoes, the Seeker heaved himself out of the pool with a slight grunt, unconsciously pleased by the instant contraction of his narrow muscles as the forgiving buoyancy of water left him. He felt tight and warm and slim from the swim. The second his wet feet slapped down, however, he was reawakened to the gritty artificial atmosphere of all pools, public or private: the heater flipped on somewhere in the cavernous building and the smell of chlorine hit him again, clinging to the clammy concrete. His little haven sloshed away below him, blue as ever.

His President handed him the towel, which he snatched without honoring the other man with as much as a glance. Frowning into it, he rubbed at his chest and tangled hair. Starscream's face puckered when he turned and caught the old man staring—rather, _observing_ in that intensely-intrigued, one-brow-raised Megatron way—his skin-tight speedo, which was a shade of maroon (cut with imposingly mod geometrical lines) that only he could pull off.

"Impressive," Megatron offered as he looked up, brows high.

It could have been about anything: his skillful swimming, his impertinence at failing to answer his phone. Therefore it was a mark of character—and vanity—that Starsream immediately assumed the old man was referring to his ass.

"Do you want me to hold a bowl underneath your eyes when they pop out, or just rip them out myself?" he hissed, snapping his towel for emphasis. Megatron gave him a look that was borderline _fond_ and turned to walk toward the exit.

"Get dressed," he sighed, then looked back, grey eyes sly once more. "Or stay as you are. Your choice."

"Go to hell," Starscream huffed into the towel, hiding his obstinate and very un-adult pout. He waited until the door to the pool closed, leaving him alone in the echoing landscape of concrete and water. As awful as a meeting sounded right then, with all its stiff suits and tense silence, the Seeker couldn't resist slipping his feet back into the pool for another minute, as if to soak some of the calm blue into himself.

He sat and leaned back and breathed in and out, simply feeling the content burble of the cleaning jet against his bare feet, and thought about slicing through endless blue skies and leaving the sound-barrier behind.


	38. Touch

A/N: Read this **_after_** you read Old Turning, if you're following both OC and OM! Thankies!

Starscream is the unhappiest and most confused person I've ever written D: Also, adoring thanks to Pinkuh for providing the whole of Megatron's pre-Detroit backstory, only a snippet/facet of which is being alluded to here. In my opinion, it ups his sexiness at least 140 percent.

Translate the Portuguese, I KNOW YOU WANT TO. Big hugs and kisses to Bisuteria and Drachenaugen for help with grammar/my idiocy. Apparently I have readers who speak both Portuguese and Spanish, which somehow excites me greatly!

Also, this is the last mind-molesty, irritating-lack-of-touch chapter. Not saying they'll get it on immediately (HAH), but things will be much more forward from here on out! And there will be lots of kisses. Many angry kisses! And Skyfire is up next wooooo~

_Characters: Starscream, Megatron, flashback Heiress_

_Pairings: Megatron/Starscream for srs because I keep lying about it  
_

_Warnings: Unprofessional conduct from Megatron, as always. Calling and Lesson mentionings, and the Worst (if Most Dedicated) Mother Ever award goes to…_

* * *

Touch

* * *

If there was one thing Starscream despised, it was errands.

Not only errands, but _fools'_ errands. He did not graduate with honors from Iacon Academy to be stuck running reports from floor to floor of the most prestigious and dangerous company in Detroit, and yet, whenever he happened to step on Megatron's toes by pointing out a brutally accurate flaw in one of his _oh-so-grand_ plans, it was a reliable mode of punishment. More often than not he was handed a pile of papers and told to get a move on—oh, and some coffee too, if you wouldn't mind. Only his siblings would dare waggle their coffee cups at him (or, in Slipstream's case, whack him over the head with hers) but the very implication made his blood boil.

Starscream nearly ground his teeth down to stubs as he stalked through the harshly lit hallways, knowing he was still responsible for his _original_ work back in his office as well as this tomfoolery. Megatron was cruel and merciless indeed, but the thing Starscream was beginning to fear most from his President was his horrid brand of _efficiency_. Why spare the punches or the paperwork of a pay-dock if his inferior could punish himself, cause his coworkers to hold him in contempt and get actual work done at the same time?

Swallowing the last of his grumbles, the Seeker rearranged his bundle of files and elbowed open the double doors that led to his ultimate embarrassment: the President's office. The large room was nearly pitch-black, all shades drawn. Squinting, he looked up towards the front of the room. Projected up onto the wall was a crisp page from a news website (because of course, the old fool's eyes were too ruined to stare at a _tiny_ computer screen, he thought with some pleasure) which featured blocks of text and, in the center, a fuzzy video.

The man on the screen was speaking rapidly, a kind of curt, foreign language, and gesturing to match. Starscream's first thought was that Megatron was ignoring the video and focusing on the text, but when the young man drew closer with his bundle, the text was foreign as well, sporting curvy accents and earmarks of a western romantic language.

The video ended, leaving Starscream somewhat open-mouthed in front of his boss's desk. The lights came back on, illuminating the huge grey-suited man seated silently in his leather chair, one hand to his chin and his rigidly-trimmed goatee. Still, the projection of the web-page remained, turned ghostly translucent. Starscream's eternally snide nose crinkled in confusion.

"That's…"

"Not English," the older man supplied, grey eyes never straying from the screen.

"I gathered," Starscream snapped nastily. He despised how effortlessly the man undermined his intelligence, and was even angrier that he had given Megatron the opportunity. He hadn't even meant to speak, but already Megatron had turned from the wall and was watching him expectantly, wire-frame glasses tap-tap-tapping against his full mouth. Giving him another chance to make a fool of himself.

"Italian," Starscream said off-handedly. When in doubt, be unconcerned.

"Português."

The immediate change in his President's voice startled Starscream: the richness remained, but it was coaxed into a flawless accent. That of a native speaker. Before he could comment—or indeed, stare incredulously until he had his fill—Megatron leaned over and shut off the projector.

"I acquired it during my childhood. It was… necessary," he said oddly, then looked up at Starscream with one thick brow raised. "Surely, considering your upbringing, you have a remedial grasp of some proper romantic language."

"French," Starscream replied somewhat defensively, bundle still untouched and in hand.

"Of course," Megatron chortled softly, shaking his head with an air Starscream didn't like in the slightest. "Have you ever visited?"

"Every summer."

"_Oui_? And exchanged your _mercis_ and _s'il vous plaît's_?"

His tone was so condescending that Starscream, chin instantly raising a notch to match the heat under his skin, had no intention of answering him. He wondered, indeed, why he had indulged the old fool so far, but the President exhaled tensely and stood, pocketing his reading glasses.

"You will never learn a language unless you are thrown into the thick of it—unless you link it to vital communication, to a means to obtain bread and water. You do not have the right to say you speak it until you think in it and finally dream in it. Until it becomes verbal instinct and your two vocabularies strive for dominance in your mind. You are, at best, a book-trained tamer that has never once touched a wild horse, rolling proper conjugations around your tongue before you consider to _think_ to speak."

"Yes, and nothing impresses you and you are so _very_ superior to everyone around you."

Megatron turned to stare at him, expression nothing if not unsurprised and bland—but even then, it was hard to hold his gaze.

If the jibe came out sharply, it was only because Starscream realized, at the last moment, that he was actually paying attention to Megatron's eloquent, useless diatribe. The man was an incredible orator, made all the more incredible when the passion of his deep voice was restrained to his eyes and eyes alone. Which, plainly, sucked when you were hellbound and determined to deride and deplore every facet of his being.

"I think we all know the routine, oh mighty leader," Starscream continued snidely, thankfully able to dispel any and all illusion of interest with a dry, impatient look. "Gas was under five dollars, ten miles in the snow barefoot, and all that. Now, if you don't mind, I have more important things to do than listen to your senile rants."

Radiating expert derision, Starscream flung down three grey, logo-marked folders and turned. Before he could take a step, however, a hand closed on his wrist, firm as iron. Starscream chomped down on the urge to hiss like an offended cobra and simply stared, face white, at the President.

"And if you do not mind, I still need that last report," Megatron said lightly, hand outstretched—then those same powerful grey eyes _glinted_. "If you have the time before you get back to your… _very_ important things."

Namely, getting coffee for the entirety of the finance department. Starscream's teeth clacked together.

There was still one grey folder hiding amongst its blue and yellow fellows. Bristling, Starscream looked at his superior's hand in disgust, then jerkily put the files down on the older man's desk, singled out the remaining report and slid it towards him. Then he waited, lip curled, for Megatron to release him.

Megatron did so only after a long moment more of staring at him. The instant that hard hand was off of his thin wrist, Starscream turned away and rubbed it, earning an openly disbelieving look from the older man.

"Why in the world are you so averse to touch?"

"I can assure you, I'm only averse to yours," Starscream muttered, hurriedly recovering from the shock of the contact. A hand around his wrist was as good as a hand around his neck.

"Nonsense. A universal occurrence," Megatron said shortly. "One has to wonder why, when brushed in a hallway by an intern, you shriek like a cat. Or when your own brother grabs for your arm, you raise your hand as if to strike him."

Megatron walked slowly around his desk as Starscream fussed pointedly with his 'very important things': the photocopies for the afternoon meeting that he had been forced to make that morning. Torture prescribed by the very man regarding him so intently. The President shook his head, speaking with the slow, careful air of one finally closing in on something which has evaded their sharp mind for months, perhaps years.

"You despise the simplest of contacts."

"I do not," Starscream lied, ducking almost childishly to hide the ugly expression forming on his face.

It was true. Any person who touched him initiated an itch that crawled over his back like a fever prickle. If unwarned, a touch on the arm was as good as a slap. A hand on his back (so close to his spine) was an offense punishable by death or a single poisonous sneer. He simply hated the feeling of hands on him unless he had given them express permission to be there. Part of it was because he was too good to be touched by just anyone; part of it was because he simply saw no point in being touched unless it was going to _go_ somewhere.

"Then allow me," Megatron began cordially, deep voice far closer than Starscream ever suspected. By the time the younger man thought to turn and perhaps run, the huge man's hand was on his shoulder, drawing him around. "To touch you."

"Absolutely not."

Starscream snatched the remaining files from the desk and started for the door—but once again, Megatron caught him by the arm, yanking him to a halt. This time Starscream looked back in violent disbelief, shrill voice reduced to a rasp.

"Are you _insane_?"

"Merely curious."

Megatron ventured closer and took the Seeker's hand in his, well-aware of the knifelike talons that flexed to either side, fully prepared to dig into the flesh of his hand. Slowly, his thumb began to wander his Second's small palm.

"I am interested in you. In your… convolutions."

"I don't care," Starscream said flintily when he found his voice (and whatever dumb words presented themselves first). He pointedly kept his eyes pinned to the opposite wall, away from the silver-haired man. "I'm your Second, not the star of your personal freak-show. You aren't allowed to be personally interested in me. It isn't efficient."

"Neither is sending one of the most accomplished men in this building on idiot's errands when he could be assisting me in my personal business," Megatron said archly, winning a half-dismayed, half-furious flash of emotion from the other man. After a moment, Starscream narrowed his eyes and simply stood, waiting for his next offense. Megatron gestured at the air almost humbly.

"Allow me to touch you in a wholly decent way for ten minutes and I will ask no further on the matter."

At Starscream's aghast, unconvinced look, he smirked faintly.

"Think of it as a test of endurance. If you are not as cowardly as I assume you to be, you will pass and I will leave you be," Megatron continued, expression edging on amused, as if he were chuckling a good deal on the inside. When Starscream looked as if he were tensing to pull away, he tightened his grip and added, "I will also call an intern to relieve you of your current assignment. Afterwards, you may return to your original work and distribute it among your staff as you see fit."

If there was one thing to be said about Megatron, he knew where to hit where it hurt—and how to get what he wanted after his opponent was on his knees.

Efficient bastard. No other offer could have kept Starscream in his grip long enough for Megatron to assume his Second was biting his tongue, and, by that point, the older man's callused fingers were working into his palm in a wholly presumptuous manner. After a few seconds of the—he choked on the word—_massage_, Starscream settled for sneering and looking away, files still clutched against his chest as if they were a shield.

"What makes you think this even _resembles_ professional protocol?"

"I run my business somewhat differently than the rest. I focus on... relationships."

Starscream failed to react when the President firmly relieved him of the files and set them on his desk. The younger man was too occupied with trying to hide the fact that he was wincing from the strength of the hand gripping his, which was conscientiously working out tendons he hadn't realized were tight. Megatron watched his every twitching expression with an uncommon interest, eyes just beginning to rekindle their earlier gleam.

"And that is what confuses me about you, Starscream. You cling so tightly to some aspects of professionalism then flagrantly disregard others."

"I use… whatever benefits me," Starscream grit out, shoulders rising inch by inch by inch as the small pain came and went, then came again. "As you said, you run your business… differently. What right have you to… assume everyone else will play by your rules?"

Megatron half-smiled. How rare it was to eke an honest statement out of Starscream—and they were more alike than he thought. The only difference was, Megatron functioned off of rationale and a steady observation of others, while Starscream jerked furiously at his own wheel, uncaring of the world around him and firm in the belief that he could conquer anything by sheer concentration of… whatever hid in his gut that simultaneously ate him from the inside out. Pure vitriol, he supposed.

"And what caused this?" Megatron wondered, now looking closely at the hand in his. The pale skin, though barely showing the light lines, was bumpy and ragged with scar-tissue. One of Starscream's hands was perfect, the other almost mutilated in messy stripes—or had been, at one time.

"None of your business," Starscream snapped with sudden anger, neck beginning to pinken, but couldn't pull his hand free no matter how hard he tried. And he _tried_. The older man looked at him flatly for a moment, as if disappointed or bored with his Second's bawlings, then released him.

"Take off your jacket."

Starscream babied his scarred hand instantly, then gaped up at his employer.

"That wasn't part of the—"

"If the sight of dress-shirts and exposed ties aroused me, I would never get anything done," he rumbled dryly, knowing exactly where the younger man's thoughts were. There was nothing indecent he could do with a shirt that he couldn't do with a jacket, and the impatience in his face proclaimed it. Megatron divested himself of his own jacket as proof, then held his hand out.

"Starscream."

Taking a jittery moment to weigh how much he _truly_ didn't want to refill Thundercracker's coffee pot again (and to reason what one truly evil man could do with a free-swinging tie and eight minutes), Starscream thrashed out of his mauve coat, peevishly throwing it on a nearby chair instead of allowing the older man to take it. Megatron curbed the urge to roll his eyes. He then moved behind his Second, smiling somewhat grimly when he dug both hands into the young man's shoulders and Starscream jerked away from him as if stung.

"As I was saying, what benefits you in abstaining from physical touch? It can sway people unconsciously—a primitive yet effective form of communication highly underrated in this country. But then, we are a primitive people, and thus we are less apt to trust what we cannot touch."

His strong fingers worked methodically into the young man's shoulders, again and again, harder and harder. Starscream's nails were digging into his desk. There were now four pretty little scratch-marks on the President's rich mahogany, and he could not think of waxing them away. Eyes lingering on the fine honey-colored lines (there would be more later, hopefully), Megatron leaned towards his Second's reddened ear and lowered his voice to a purr.

"Surely your mother taught you that."

Starscream tensed instantly: proof that knowing that the blow was coming did not make it any easier to bear. The Seeker heir began to open his mouth, began to move away, but his President forced him into a nearby chair, big hands clamping onto his shoulders and abruptly beginning to knead lower, into his knotted-up back.

"Seven more minutes and you may leave." His tone so iron-clad that Starscream merely swallowed, then squawked sharply and glared over his shoulder as pain daggered out from his back. "And relax. It will not help in the slightest if you continue to flex."

For a moment, there was nothing but the papery slide of thumbs against a dress shirt and the occasional huff from Starscream, soon half-bent in his chair.

"My mother is not the subject of this conversation," Starscream grit out between winces, unable to choke back a strangled noise as the older man happened upon a particularly painful knot: he seemed incapable of anything but the most crushing of touches.

"But you are," Megatron reminded him softly, pausing to trace the fine knobs of the boy's spine, steel and jelly in turns, with his fingers. "And I have the feeling your mother is a very large part of who you are."

* * *

_He walked up the stone path mechanically, drawn toward the golden-brown light of the high French windows like a sick moth. The cold night cut at his neck and face with a sudden gust of wind, but he did not move to fend it off—his arms remained limp at his sides, his face slack. The front door opened before he stepped foot on the porch, revealing the dramatic hourglass figure of his mother: a tasteful collage of diamonds and grey silk for Christmas dinner with her gloved hands out for him._

"_My Star, my handsome Star. I nearly wasted away without you!"_

_She was all pride, all serene smiles, until she looked down and saw his hand, trussed tightly in white bandages. The jagged, deep wounds had long sealed up, all the glass long-gone, but he wished viciously, with a kind of awful echoing malice, that all of the cuts would break right there and stain the bandages, just for her eyes. He flexed his stiff hand in the hopes that it would._

_Mother stared and stared and Starscream stood in the doorway, just outside the light of the porch lamp, and breathed heavily in the frigid air, dark hair mussed._

"_My god, your hand," she said finally, voice _perfectly_ breathy, which only enraged him further—brought him to a point both outside himself and deep inside his bones. An animal state._

"_You told me what to do," he choked out when he could speak, throat red and tight. "You made me believe this was what was expected of me."_

"_What… are you talking about?" she asked, stepping forward with wide eyes. The moment her gloved hands extended, however, Starscream knew he would become sick if his mother—her slimy silk--touched him. She caused this._

* * *

"Think what you want. You had enough faith in my _techniques_ that you hired me."

"Surely she had a large hand in tutoring you."

"Staff took care of that."

"Staff," came the curious repetition.

"Nursemaids. Tutors. People."

Megatron's large hand slid down the hunched back in front of him, lingering on the delicate edges of the young man's shoulder-blades. There was no need to hide the greed in his eyes, with Starscream's face directed at the floor between his knees. The larger greed was not for his Second's exposed back, or his closed eyes, but the slow and steady exposure of Starscream himself.

If the older man had had his hand in an open wound, the situation would not have been more delicate.

"But she was your primary parent. Your father, as I hear, was mostly absent."

"Aren't they all?" Starscream muttered bitterly, causing the President's eyebrows to raise a notch.

"I cannot give a relevant opinion."

And on and on—and deeper and deeper.

* * *

_He jerked away, then pushed past her, raging further into the belly of his cold house, his coiffed _estate_ that was no more of a home than a boarding school, and she followed him at a near-run. He could hear her stilettos clicking away behind him, stabbing at the marble then the wood then the tiling. He turned into his room and flung the door back, only to have it catch on his mother's heel. She slapped it back and cornered him, snatching him by the sleeve of his sweater._

"_Starscream, look me in the eye and stop sniveling!" she ordered, yanking him down an inch as her eyes maniacally searched his bloodless face. "I won't cater to your goddamned dramatics until you tell me what happened to your hand!"_

_Taking in a deep breath that threatened to rip him in two, he told her. Screamed it at her, because she never spoke of anything like this happening. _

_He had never anticipated the terror of outreaching someone's primal patience; of flirting too far in what he assumed to be a game until hard hands came down on his wrists and he realized what was at stake. He used to be a god. Now he was a cringing human, too aware of the weak red blood under his skin and the soft, easily-torn nature of that very covering. _

_He had fallen, but he was not only broken, he was covered in dirt and he was cold and scared. He had never experienced _failure_ before, much less fear so strong it made him want to retch. In that awful moment, running across the dark grounds of Iacon Academy with his bloody hand hidden in his bloody jacket, face wet with sweat and tears alike _with no one to help him_, Starscream felt as if he could never trust a man again—himself included._

_Then, finally, came the one moment where he ran out of words and he stood before her, a foot taller and shivering madly… and his mother actually reached for him._

_His mother took him into her arms and hushed him, made him feel like the seven year old he should have been as he was held by the woman who never touched him unless she had to. They fell, collapsed in tandem onto a nearby chair, Starscream on his knees. He cried silently into her skirts, relishing and becoming even more hysteric knowing that she would normally push him away, seeing as salt water—tears--stained silk. She leaned forward and spoke into his rumpled hair, voice hoarse._

"_You are so stunning, my Star. You are beautiful, intelligent, dedicated and strong. You have so much ahead of you: I have so much faith in you, in what you can do. You are poised at the edge of the world, Starscream, ready to take it. You will outdo every single person in this family."_

_The unfamiliar words, pouring from the first and only tear in the distant woman above him, were enough to make Starscream's chest so tight he felt as though he would die on his knees, lost in his mother's skirts—and part of him dearly wanted to. He knew what lay beyond, now._

"_I was…"_

_Frightened, he tried to say. Terrified. My perfect world ended and you weren't there to tell me what to do. She hushed him again, sighing by his temple, gloved hands on his wet cheeks._

"_Oh, Starscream. Even the saddest events have a lesson," she whispered, one finger tracing the line of his jaw. Starscream looked up at her, eyes red and puffy, and she brushed the last of his tears away almost like she didn't care how ugly he was in that moment. She smiled at him, tenderly. _

"_You'll just have to be more careful next time."_

_Starscream never quite remembered shoving her away or locking himself in his room, or the unearthly silent moment of staring that came before either, but always remembered the last time his mother held him._

* * *

"Truth, Starscream."

It was like pulling teeth to get anything but lies out of him. Megatron practically felt his Second's innards twist at the question he asked. At last, Starscream nodded.

"As you are bound to bring it up again and again in a hollow, idiotic attempt to embarrass me…" Starscream swallowed. "Her methods are well-known. She taught me and, knowing no better, I attempted her way. I found it… undesirable."

That one night in the lab haunted him, and always would. It was right in there along with the First Bicycle memories, imbedded in the flesh of his person like a foul aftertaste. His every nerve remembered it. He had managed to get over it, as five-some years and a sex drive would tell, but there were still certain issues. Trust issues. Control issues.

Any man to cross his bedroom threshold abided by a singular rule: obey or get out.

"And now?" Megatron asked, softly enough not to startle him out of his own head.

Like the hard hands on his back, Starscream could still remember the vehemence with which he felt it: his new _direction_. His mother had twisted him, even if it was in a sincere wish to see him successful, and he had to surpass her. Prove himself above using his body for what he wanted—_anything_ he wanted. He would _defeat_ her. He remembered it well, but what he couldn't grasp was why he was still _talking_, why he was telling the President this.

His enemy. His enemy, behind him, crushing hands atop his tender creaking spine. But no--the difficulty of the words combined with the pure strength and difficult nature of the touch rendered the Seeker somewhat stupefied. He had long stopped twitching away from Megatron's hands.

No one had ever asked him why he was the way he was. It wasn't so much that they hadn't wondered—he could always sense the question in the back of their throats, more likely wanting proof for a sordid story they'd already concocted rather than actually willing to listen—but that they hadn't bothered. It was a kind of blatant human disregard that didn't matter much in the daylight, but slipped between the cracks at night. It hatefully insulated his chest and every vulnerable organ within and told him he didn't need people. And he didn't.

Starscream did little more than twitch when Megatron's big hands teased through the hair at the base of his neck. His eyelids fluttered.

"The only way you get what you want is by throwing yourself into it. No compromise. No surrender. Hard work."

He had become a jumbled bag of clichés, hardly himself, but the sea of rhythmic, unthreatening touch he'd found himself in was too deep and too relieving to try to get out of, much less begin the sordid battle of claiming his façade again. Strong hands had stopped their assault and now kneaded softly, slowly. He had never been touched this way before. Pleasantly.

He had never been tricked this way before, _pleasantly_, as ten strictly-haggled minutes dragged on into fifteen, and then twenty while his President loomed over him, smile slowly growing.

"Of course," Megatron said silkily from behind his ear, hand slipping down his Second's warm neck. Starscream exhaled softly, the very sound sending awed prickles down the older man's hard body. "Hard work and rat poison."

Starscream had replaced one underhanded tactic with another: only a fool would think he was honest, but even the greatest fool could see he was damaged beyond repair.

When Starscream continued breathing softly, un-roused by the jab and lost in his small trance, the President stepped around to the front of the chair and half-leaned on one of the arm-rests, staring intently at his filigree lashes before touching the Seeker's cheek, brushing his thumb over the younger man's lips.

The light contact was enough to make Starscream open his eyes and draw back, dark dabs of color barely glittering. He returned his President's stare hazily, as if wondering what he was doing there in that chair and in that suit and in that well-furnished corporate office—and what this silk-clad man wanted from him.

Megatron saw now, it was not as simple as Starscream being trustworthy. He himself could not trust. He did not know how. If he had ever trusted anyone, it was never rewarded—in any way.

His experience was not exclusive. Megatron's impenetrable chest once more tightened with that manic fervor, so rare and yet so dangerous, that insisted they were destined for each other. He saw the ragged gap in the other man, and finally knew where it lay. Combined, they would be perfection.

"Let me be the first you trust, Starscream. Trust me, and all good things will follow. You need never fear touch beside me."

"And yet you struck me three days ago," Starscream rasped faintly, gaze trained somewhere beyond his President. "And you will slap me tomorrow over some… some unmarked bundle of papers you find in my desk."

Determined expression unchanging, Megatron carefully took the thin man by the waist and lifted his unresponsive weight up onto his feet until they were standing chest-to-chest, mouths almost brushing.

"And that is because I will already know where those papers came from and what you were planning to do with them, Starscream. Nothing is unconditional. You may always trust me to react befitting what you do," the warlord said softly, holding him steadily and breathing in the young man's scent. "Has anyone ever offered you so much—honest constancy? I am just. If you follow me, I will reward you. If you obey me, I will protect you. Do this, I will never lay a hand on you again, little Seeker."

Starscream exhaled shakily when callused fingers trailed down his white neck. An arm slipped around his waist, big hand warm on his back, and Megatron's voice came close and deep in his ear.

"Unless, of course, you desire it."

The Seeker had nothing left in him to protest the other man's suffocating, protective closeness: the earlier rhythmic touch had worked all of the poison out of his blood momentarily. When Starscream did nothing more than shiver slightly in his arms, Megatron leaned down and kissed him. The older man had to hold back the sweltering rush of victory, to keep his hold gentle as he pressed kiss after kiss to the Seeker's pink lips, finally deepening it with a touch of his tongue. Starscream caught his breath but did not pull away, then tasted his lips gingerly in return. When he finally turned his face away, the younger man exhaled almost anxiously, brow knotted.

Megatron's mind strayed to the button that would lock his office door, but he never took a step toward it. The reason: Starscream put a fraction of weight on his wide chest, leaning into him, underneath his chin. Submitting. His skin burned at the thought, making him forget earthly things like locks and privacy; the tender space underneath his ribs convulsed with wonderful sharpness.

"What do you need, Starscream?" he murmured, stroking his Second's narrow back. "Tell me."

Despite the utter honesty and seriousness of the question, Starscream could not speak—and if he had been able to, it would have been to stutter that he did not know what he needed. He had never known, but this whole struggle was to find something he wanted enough to fill the gap left by what he _needed_. All of this passed in near-frightened silence, circulating unheard beneath his pale sweat-damp skin as he hid against his enemy's chest.

When there was no response, the older man kissed him deeply once again, thrilling at Starscream's soft breaths against his lips and wondering at the hands on his chest; the way the nails simply gave way to white, scarred human fingertips when not poised to kill. Yes, this was the way they were intended to be.

"_Eu desejo te mais do que tudo, passarinho_," he whispered into the Seeker's ear when they parted again, holding him close to his chest and the heart within, beating rapidly for the first time in years.

"What did you say?" Starscream asked hoarsely, not daring to open his eyes. His cheek was pressed to Megatron's shoulder, sharp cologne overwhelming him as much as the strong heat from his skin. The granite arms around him removed the need for a spine, for a skeleton, and he swam for the first time in exquisite helplessness, exhausted from his constant battles with the older man and abandoned by his pride.

"I know what you need. I see it now, and I will give it to you if only you will stop fighting me," the President swore, lips against his temple. "I will give you anything you desire, if only you give yourself to me. If you _entrust_ yourself to me, you will be safe."

The words, no matter how glorified by the push of Megatron's passion, struck something inside his inferior, and it was a note that could not help but resound. Waking slightly, Starscream shook his head with torturous slowness. He barely began to push his lord away, but the older man took his chin and this time the kiss was brutal enough that Starscream whined and cringed, buckling at the knees.

"Say it, Starscream. Say you will be mine," he urged into his inferior's mouth, grip tightening to near-painful intensity. "I can help you. I will do everything in my power to give you peace, give you purpose. Who else can protect you from yourself?"

For a moment, all he heard were his Second's labored breaths which seemed to steam up the thick haze he was still trapped in--then the telephone gave an earsplitting shriek behind them and Starscream started as if shot, instantly shoving Megatron away. Megatron's hands, loosened by shock, gave.

The President was graced with a single second of Starscream standing in front of him, trembling with wide eyes, before the young man abruptly turned white and ran out of the room.

Megatron grabbed after him, then whirled and overturned the nearest chair with a bloodcurdling roar as the doors boomed shut. The cry seared him from the inside out, shaking his marrow with an inhuman anger. After it faded like a dark earthquake, the President stood motionless for a solid minute, listening to the shrill, awful ring of the phone.

He simply breathed in and out, controlling the riot of his hot blood, then moved over and grabbed the phone and thrust it to his ear, teeth bared.

"I could have you _killed_."

"Oh. Uh. _Well_. Aren't you even going to ask who it _is_ before you start, er, making _threats_, Mr. President?"

The showman's voice was instantly recognizable over the phone, if a little strained. Megaron's grimace, if possible, doubled. This was not a call he could ignore, as much as he wished to crush the very phone to shrapnel. He took the deepest and most ineffectual breath of his life.

"Swindle. Be brief and do not test my patience," he snarled, dangerously quiet. "You've just cost me more than you can imagine."

A single call had soiled his foreseeable future and his bed in the same moment.

He was not naturally kind, not naturally gentle, and the emotions Starscream brought out in him were more acidic and impatient than anything. It was so _difficult_ to see his true potential underneath all of his flaws. The energy it had taken to coerce the brat—to promise kindness--would not easily be regathered, and Starscream would be three times as mistrustful of him for the next month.

It was hard enough to manage meaningful moments when he was forced to reach out to Starscream past the knives he held– but when the traitor was wary of _him_? Nothing mattered more to Starscream than his own skin. For the foreseeable future, there was no chance of capturing the Seeker and the very thought made his head ache and his fists tremble.

There was no informational brevity on the phone, but rather a long pause. Megatron could hear the other man breathing unsteadily on the other side.

"_Speak_," he barked at last, the beginnings of a colossal migraine gnawing at his head.

"I, uh, I guess my message precedes me, if you're already that pissed." A pause, an audible gulp. "You're not gonna like this."

"_Swindle_."

"I just promised your last carrier about thirty-five grand to finish up his first shipment and then said I would let him get out of the game the second the last gun was gone." It all came out in a rush, but before Megatron register what he'd said and could draw breath to roar, Swindle blustered, "Luckily, I have no intention of doing either!"

Unseen by a very, very nervous Indian man, the President's eyes flashed. He drummed his fingers on his desk.

"Explain."

Swindle did. It was a fairly short explanation and all the more acceptable for it. Megatron felt the pain of his fresh loss receding in the logistics of business, the juggernaut gears in his head dominating any other thought-train. At the end, he was rolling his sleeves back and nodding.

"Acceptable. Locate new carriers immediately. Appropriate a portion of the original fee and offer it as a bonus for short-notice and high-risk participation. Send Soundwave the message concerning the last carrier, he will transfer it properly."

"Right, sure _thing_, Mr. President—hah, and can I say how absolutely astonishingly astronomically, hah, _sorry_ I am that this hasn't worked out the way we _planned_. Y'know, just through _human_ factors, no real fault of mine, or, er, _yours_ for that matter—"

Irritation spiking, Megatron slammed the phone down and immediately leaned against his desk. His office was achingly empty, horribly sterile, and the grey folders still lay clean on his desk, unaffected by the messy seduction they had begun. The rest of them would remain undelivered, it seemed.

Brooding, Megatron brushed his fingers thoughtfully over the four honey-colored scratches in the varnish. Then, after a moment more, he slid those same fingers over his own lips, still damp from his Seeker's warm mouth. He exhaled, closing his eyes: the physical memory of Starscream against his chest was already faint, chased away by the anger of losing him. But this was the last time.

Starscream disliked touch. He disliked losing control, and thus fought to commandeer authority wherever he could. He constantly clawed for dominance: an outwards stability to supplement his inner instability, his seemingly constant fears. With some perspective, Megatron could see he had all the earmarks of a neurotic over-compensator. What else, combined with caustic pride and arrogance, would drive him to pursue the suicidal course of battling his very employer day by day?

But if someone were to dominate him _kindly_, to relieve some of the pressure he forced on himself? To care for him in a way so he no longer subconsciously feared the passerby? Megatron was quite sure that, in return for his protection, painless submission would find a fond home with his inferior. The older man reached over and picked up the Seeker's discarded mauve suit-jacket with a faint, dawning smile. No, Starscream would see what was best for him, regardless of how many of his age-old barriers Megatron had to break down in the process.

And, of course, he was only concerned with was best for Starscream. A happy Second would be reward enough for him. Now, with this vital new knowledge in hand, all he had to worry about was getting within three feet of the other man. Also, murdering Swindle.

Busy days ahead, even without considering the files on his desk.


	39. Benefit of the Doubt

A/N: This'll be a reeeeally solid arc. Thanks to everyone who asked after Skyfire, because he truly was going to be a pop-in-pop-out character, but now he's in deep with our favorite Seeker and the results will be AWESOME.

And special thanks to Andrea :3 Because she helped me see something that needed to be emphasized.

_Characters: Skyfire, Starscream, smack-talked Megatron_

_Pairings: None. Sorta. Implied (bad) Megatron/Starscream._

_Warnings: none. Just a note that the drunk scene probably occurs right after Touch, because of how very traumatized Starscream is. Also, the 'something awful' reference is the 'Experiment' extra of AFFnet. Cos it reaaaally did happen._

* * *

Benefit of the Doubt

* * *

Starscream graduated with honors in business, securing a solid minor in science. Skyfire became a chemical engineer and was immediately roped into teaching advanced classes in exchange for the use of Iacon Academy's labs and some modest funding. It seemed to be his only course, as the market for research-oriented chemical engineers was brutal, but he was content to be involved in large over-arcing projects of the visiting famous scientists. Though his passion was just as strong as it was five years ago, his demure nature persisted just as well, and such a combination did not catch employers' eyes.

For years, he remained invisible to the hiring world at large—except one man, apparently.

"Work for me."

The day that Starscream showed up at the unused lab in room 203 (the only room the staff could spare for him in the long-abandoned chemistry annex), the thin man pivoted on his purple heel and took in the cramped establishment with a faintly exasperated expression, poking at filled beakers and calorimeters as if they were cultist curiosities instead of the tools he had used a few years ago. Skyfire pushed back his goggles and stared. He kept staring when Starscream offered him—or flung at him, impatiently, while holding a solution of tropical-teal copper sulfate up to the light—a lead position in D-Con industries' developmental section.

Flabbergasted would be one word; disbelieving would be another. He could not help but feel he was seeing a ghost. A very… garish ghost. But this was certainly the Starscream he remembered, despite the tightly-tailored mauve suit and orange tie: the arrogant tilt of his mouth proved it. The thorny gold pin on his tie glinted impressively, catching Skyfire's eye when hit by any dusty pillar of light afforded by the scabbed-over windows.

"Why?"

It was all Skyfire could manage, still uncomprehending of how the Seeker heir had _found_ him at his Iacon retreat, or managed to time it to where he wasn't surrounded by his undergraduate students. Or cared enough to try for either.

"Because you're the best chemist I know, _professor_," Starscream responded with a mysterious smugness, putting the beaker down with just the right amount of carefulness. Old habits died hard—as did a man's first love. This was Starscream's first time in a lab in many years and it showed on his face. "And it wouldn't hurt to have a friend on the research staff."

And suddenly they were friends, because Starscream said so.

After five years of silence, emerging from a strained, scholarly coexistence that was nothing close to brotherly affection… Skyfire wondered half-hysterically if they were going to exchange friendship bracelets to make it official. The Seeker paid a brief glance to his nails as Skyfire's mind performed stunned summersaults, mostly unable to force his imagination beyond the stone-brown walls of the old throwaway lab.

A lead position, just like that?

"Your own lab, all of the most modern equipment, high-security clearance, access to any materials you could dream of… Besides, _I_ pay far better than Sumdac," Starscream assured him, dark eyes glinting proudly. Then he turned on his heel and strode toward the door, thumbing a business card with a purple symbol onto his centrifuge without turning around. "Think about it, if you're done being kept as a pet scientist at your old alma mater. I'm certain you'll see there's really only one way to go."

As the lab only had one entrance, it became the dead-end it always had been when Starscream closed the door with a snap, leaving Skyfire alone with himself. He couldn't remain trapped like this—or he would, if he stayed put and kept his mouth shut. If he wanted to _go_ anywhere, there really was only one option. But as Skyfire was well aware, the end did not always justify the means. For minutes he stood with the card in his big gloved hand, unable but to ask the best and the worst questions.

Where had Starscream ended up? And, more importantly, what had he done to get there?

* * *

Regardless of how many uncertainties it took to come to his final decision, Skyfire was signed on with D-Con labs within the month.

He stayed only long enough to arrange a substitute for his classes—his students were outraged and destroyed in turns to see him go, giving the young professor a sizeable twinge of guilt--and leave Iacon in as good of graces as he could. The council said they _understood_, but it was in that tense, elderly-man tone of disapproval that said they still held him guilty for his absence. If all went well, he would no longer have to seek refuge with them—an added relief, as he had never been fond of the filibustering and slow movement of reform through the tradition-driven school.

The first change Skyfire noticed within himself was his sunny view on the near future. He had been unassumingly content at Iacon, but his new job was picture-perfect. He was thrilled with the fully-stocked lab they escorted him to and found himself becoming more and more optimistic every day he came to work and, without the attention-suck of office hours and tutoring students, he could focus fully and obsessively (as was his natural way) on the work given to him by D-Con Industries.

At first, the feeling of flying high, fast and unencumbered by politics of a dozen old men, was extraordinary enough to keep him happy, but it was only a matter of time before he realized how disconnected it all was. He seemed to be a lonesome drop of water hanging above an empty sink. He had the lab to himself, knew none of the fellow employees and his goals were sharply defined but without context. At the moment, he was working on synthesizing a very exotic chemical without the use of certain materials, which was a challenge.

His work environment didn't embody so much a sense of _wrongness_ as a twinge of sterile peculiarity, and it only became more intense when, nine at night on a Thursday, his lab door opened with a soft curse.

Skyfire hardly heard it for the murmur of the mini sattelite-radio. He turned it down, looking over his shoulder with a quizzical expression. No one (at least, no one without an all-access pass) should have been in the building. He had become so used to being uninterrupted, especially when he pulled all-night binges, that the thought of another human being in his linoleum and glass lair slightly unnerved him.

For a moment, all the chemical engineer could hear was the breathy bubble of the solution he was dehydrating, then he heard a definite slither of cloth and a thick breath. The hair stood straight on his arms. Fortunately, he was not altogether susceptible to anticipation or fear, only a biting nervousness: with the earnest bluntness only one of six feet and two-hundred pounds could achieve, Skyfire strode out into the open area of the lab.

His eyes widened slightly behind his goggles as he caught sight of his visitor; the man leaning against the counter shucked his mauve coat and loosened his orange tie, oblivious to the scientist's presence. Starscream's movements were sluggish and his eyes were half-closed, but he still managed to pause halfway in dragging the tie down his chest to glare at it—or the gold pin ever-glittering atop it—and whip the whole thing off his neck and fling it into a corner, teeth bared. He hissed something to himself, then straightened, rubbing sullenly at his eyes.

Skyfire, very capable of recognizing the signs of drunkenness or terrible exhaustion, took a few cautious steps toward his 'employer', beyond perplexed.

"Starscream?" he said hesitantly, but the result was explosive. Starscream whirled like a dervish and knocked into the safety shower, making a strangled shrieking noise as something clanged loudly. He only stopped and stilled when his hunched back was to Skyfire. His shoulders were drawn up to his ears and he was making a visible effort to breathe.

"You're in here. I forget. Forgot. Forgot that I hired…" His voice, already muddled, suddenly shrunk down to something small and confused as he held his hand up to the sterile white-blue lights of the lab. "Damnit."

Even after catching sight of a little bit of blood against the white skin of the Seeker's hand, it was surprising how quickly Skyfire's initial spike of concern deflated down to dense red irritation. But then, he was older and wiser now, and what was the saying? Fool me once, shame on me… Skyfire shook his head, sighing tensely into his hand.

Starscream was definitely drunk, and it wasn't like he was going to take his old lab partner by the jacket and shove him back outside to go stumble in front of a car. But he still had the good grace to be exasperated that anyone as brilliant as he _knew_ Starscream was would venture within a mile of a dangerous lab with a gallon of alcohol in their bloodstream. What was he doing here? Did he just stagger around as he liked and expect other people to take responsibility for him?

And here he'd thought living and working in the real world would have done something for the other man.

"Come on."

Starscream tensed against him when Skyfire walked over and took his shoulders, tossing him a peevish expression that proved the shock of the injury hadn't quite passed yet. Skyfire pushed at him until he was leaning against a nearby shelf, but it was Starscream who took the final plunge. He took a good look at his bloodied hand, expression decaying from impatient to aghast at the sight of the modest red gash on his palm, and landed hard on his ass.

Biting back another irritated sound, Skyfire poked around the high-tech, strictly organized lab until he found the first-aid box (who put life-saving equipment in a low cabinet all the way at the back? Employee safety was clearly not D-Con's first priority), then knelt in front of the catatonic Seeker and pulled off his bulky green nitrile gloves. Knowing the routine of being cared for, Starscream huffed and offered his hand like it was a chore to do so.

It looked as though he had cut himself on the metal sign on the safety shower. Skyfire would go back and wipe off the blood later. The very thought depressed him.

"It's almost like nothing's changed, huh, Starscream?" he sighed almost to himself, conscientiously picking through the neatly packaged contents of the first aid box. At least the cut was on the other hand. Otherwise, it would have been a little too weird.

"Oh, but everything's changed. Everyone got exactly what they wanted."

The other man's tone was so bitter, so _extraordinarily_ bitter despite the dumbing hold the alcohol had on him, that Skyfire looked up at his face, only to find it fixed on the colorful vials of solution up on the counter.

"You got your lab and I got… what did I get?" Starscream asked the beautiful, sleek new lab at large, cocking an ear as though the freshly minted beakers were expected to answer. Then he curled his lip and flicked his free hand. "Oh yes, the second in command position in one of the highest regarded companies in Detroit. Just what I always wanted! Did I tell you how _satisfied_ I am, how _happy_ I am doing what I do? And my _mother_, she's just thrilled!"

Skyfire let out a suffering breath, having forgotten just _quite_ how irritating Starscream's screech could be, particularly when his majesty (rather, her ladyship) was offended. He found the sterile wound-glue and popped off the cap, glancing briefly at the instructions.

"And you come stumbling down into the company labs when you get drunk, knocking around volatile chemicals and glass containers. Just for, you know, a change of pace."

"I'm Megatron's _second_. The least he can do is give me an all-access key," Starscream snapped, childishly tossing his hair. He hissed when the other man grabbed his hand and swabbed the deep cut, wiping away the blood. "He doesn't care what I do with it. I can go wherever I want."

"You get to see Megatron very often?" Skyfire asked after a long pause.

"Tragically," Starscream grumbled. "I count every millisecond until I can get away from him."

He settled back with an absolutely disgusted noise, eyes straying toward the tie coiled, snake-like, on the floor. Then he glared suspiciously down at Skyfire as if actually hearing what he had said.

"Why?"

"I've just heard things about him," Skyfire said neutrally, the slowness of his voice accounted for by the intensity with which he led the tube of glue along the clean plastic-looking gash, seaming the two ragged lines of skin together. "He seems like a very good man."

"So you're one of the poor shmucks who actually fall for the occasional charity donation and those cockanniny speeches about protecting America," Starscream sneered, grating his nails against the linoleum. His entire bony body was suddenly twitching with some held-back sentiment, face hardened with a dark malice. "He builds nuclear warheads in his basement and screws every intern he can get his paws on. That man is no more good than I am a fucking jet-plane."

Skyfire didn't know what to say to that. It was in such harsh contrast to the man's respectable public image, it sounded plucked right out of a tabloid. Above him, Starscream breathed out, seeming to gather himself. It took a while, with how widely the reeking alcohol had spread his tattered threads: Skyfire could smell the grey martinis on the other man's breath and felt even less hopeful about how this was going to end.

"I should have just become a scientist. Would give anything to be here, not in that building. No more business, no more suits, no more errands, no more… _bruises_," Starscream spat, then crumbled backwards against the shelving, head in his scarred hand.

Bruises. That one word cycled in Skyfire's mind, sticking into the too-soft peach flesh of his conscience. Megatron beating his employees. Right out of a tabloid. Starscream's cuffs were already unbuttoned, and the shadows underneath them looked too dark to be natural. It took very little thought to move from blowing gently on the drying glue to nudging up the other man's sleeve, and Skyfire's mouth opened almost immediately.

Just three inches above his cuffs, a huge, deep grape-juice bruise stood out against Starscream's white skin. It was nothing from a bump to a counter: it was definitely in the shape of a hand. Shock bleached the scientist's insides. Starscream had been grabbed so hard he purpled.

"What are you looking at, Skyfire?"

It should have been a scornful snap, or even a dangerous question, but the other man said it mechanically. He downright rasped it, voice as vacant as his eyes. When Skyfire just shook his head and took his hand back, something bobbing high in his throat (wondering once again _where Starscream was _and_ what happened to him on the way_), Starscream glowered at him sullenly, sharp eyes ringed by an unhealthy grey.

"You know why I'm even telling you this? Do you want to know why you were the one I went to after that clusterfuck with the professor, _professor_?"

Skyfire kept his eyes low and kept his fingers in the clean white roll of gauze, not sure—definitely not sure--that he wanted to know the answer.

"It's because I think you're an idiot," Starscream said thickly, head lolling back. "Don't get me wrong, you're a regular fucking genius but you're also an incurable goody-two-shoes sap and you wouldn't have told anyone no matter what I did. You wouldn't have _dared_."

"That's real nice of you." Skyfire muttered grimly as he ripped out a sizeable length of gauze. He grit his teeth at how much it irked him to hear that, even after so many years, especially when he was taking the time to patch Starscream up _again_. "And here I thought it was because you thought of me as a friend."

"And you're the only person who ever treated me like I was normal," Starscream continued, voice so amazingly weak it sounded, for a critical moment, like he was about to sob. When Skyfire looked up, however, Starscream's face was blank. "You didn't try to… suck up to me. You just thought I was good at science. I was. So were you. We… were good lab partners, weren't we?"

"Yes, we were. When you did your work. And I don't believe in treating people differently based on where they come from," Skyfire said with some difficulty, knowing he was just talking into a void.

With as intoxicated as Starscream was, there was very little chance he would remember this in the morning, but still, the wistfulness with which he spoke… it unnerved him. It was almost like being judged only on one of his talents—even being _used_ for it—was a relief to him. People always spoke of rich kids just wanting to play kickball with all the other kids. Money couldn't raise a child—was Starscream a case of someone trying to?

"You aren't an idiot."

Suddenly the hand he was wrapping in gauze fumbled for his, slim fingers locking with his own chunky digits. Starscream's nails were incredibly glossy, he noticed dumbly. And his hand was shaking.

"You're one of the smartest men I know. Even after school, they were never as smart as you. That's why you're here. That's why I want you here."

"Thanks," was all Skyfire could say, alarmed at how hard and insincere he sounded, even if it was only because of shock. He had never heard Starscream's voice crack like that before, nor never had him initiate any sort of touch before. He half-choked when Starscream suddenly caught him by the wrist and looked intensely into his eyes.

"I did something awful to you and you don't even know it."

And they stared at each other, a definite tension taking root in Skyfire's broad back. Something was intensely wrong, he just didn't have a name for it—and it was so deeply buried in the other man, he didn't know where it lay. If just to break his gaze, he moved to get Starscream onto his feet. Hoisted up under his arms, the younger man stumbled and ended up in Skyfire's chest, both hands clutching his lab-coat.

"You smell like sulfur," Starscream murmured into his wide chest, too quietly, too curiously.

"I know. I, uh—sulfur compound. Radical agent," Skyfire said before he realized the silliness of explaining it to a drunk person. He smiled slightly, wondering what to do next, especially with his solution still boiling away. "Stinks, doesn't it?"

Starscream didn't answer. He just stayed there under his chin, leaning against him, breathing it in—the stink of labs the world round. Skyfire's hand was warm and big on his back. The Seeker's thin arms tightened slightly around Skyfire's middle before there came a quiet tap-tap-tapping down the darkened hall outside. No matter how faint, it fairly echoed in the startlingly silent lab and Starscream jerked straight as if slapped. He grabbed Skyfire's labcoat lapels and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Please," he hissed. "He's sent his goddamn dog after me. Please, hide me."

Stunned as he was, Skyfire didn't so much hide Starscream as turn to the side to allow the other man to fall to his knees, where he scrambled behind the nearest counter. Skyfire looked away from the very tips of Starscream's glossy boots protruding from the counter as a light knock came from the door, making his skin prickle. For the second time, he was pointlessly baffled that there was anyone else in the building besides him and swore to go home at a normal time from then on.

He went to the door and opened it, revealing a pale man with a red patch over one eye and a tall, thin frame. He was dressed in a tightly tailored grey vest with teal accents, arms hard and thick under a black turtleneck.

"I apologize for the interruption. I am searching for a… friend of mine. Has anyone passed this way?" he inquired, voice both mild and thoroughly English.

"No, not to my knowledge," Skyfire answered, forcing a befuddled kind of innocence onto his face—the type he was best at. "Can I… help you with something, sir?"

Remaining eye making a quicksilver dissection of the lab, the blond man—rather handsome and well-put-together for being someone's dog--stared at him coldly for a moment more before disappearing with a snap of the door. His footsteps, as unobtrusive and polite as his knock, faded off down the hallway. Without knowing quite why, Skyfire stayed frozen by the door until there was complete silence in the dark building, then scrubbed at his messy hair and sighed.

He rounded the corner of the counter and Starscream immediately grasped at his shoes, leaning his head against the older man's knees for a moment as though he was going to be sick. After the Seeker steadied himself, Skyfire took him up under the arms again and, carefully checking each hallway beforehand, led him step-by-step to a common lounge. The couch was just big enough for him to sprawl out and he would be able to find his way out the next morning… whenever he happened to wake up, be it after the embarrassment of being found hung-over by coffee-starved interns or not.

Bending over, Skyfire lowered the strangely catatonic businessman onto the couch, thinking that perhaps the other man was right—that maybe he was a goody-two-shoes pushover and he should start working on becoming a little more of an asshole so that he wouldn't always be the one walking drunk people to their beds—but Starscream grabbed hold of his lab-coat before his head hit the cushion, eyes afire like he had woken from a chase in his head.

"It's inevitable," the Seeker muttered tensely. "Whether it takes a month or three years, he's going to get what he wants. Going to take it."

Skyfire's voice stuck in his throat—but it wasn't as if he had a response to give. He simply stared at Starscream and pure dismay on his face. It was staggering. The businessman's sleeve had fallen down to show the very rosiest edge of the bruise.

"He's wearing me down to nothing, it's driving me insane. It would be so easy just to give up. Give in to him. Give in on _everything_. It's so hard, doing this. Why am I doing this?"

Starscream looked at him weakly, as if taken over by a horrible clarity, and was gone in the next moment, limp against the cushions. Feeling uncomfortable in a way he didn't understand, Skyfire carefully unwrapped Starscream's hands from his lapels, checked his bandages and turned off the light.

Skyfire went back to his lab and finished dehydrating his solution. Then he went home and went to sleep, and got up again the next morning without thinking of anything in particular. It was only when he entered his lab, ready for another day of solitary work, that he saw the spotty red smear on the warning sign on the shower and stopped, bag over his shoulder.

Seeing where the blood had dried, the orange tie coiled a few feet away, Skyfire thought that, perhaps, things had changed more than he had ever suspected. Moreso, maybe he was a good guy for a reason. Whatever Starscream had said or done before, the emotion in him—and the bruise on his arm--was real.

There were plenty of other chemists out there, that much was fact. Half of them were probably far more talented than he was, and a far better choice for a company as progressive and viciously commercial as D-Con. But maybe Starscream hired him and made him a _friend_ because it was the one thing he needed above all else but couldn't buy.

* * *

As hard as he tried to stop thinking about Starscream, it just didn't work.

Skyfire threw himself into his work tenfold, reminding himself again and again that, when Starscream left his life five years ago, he was horribly relieved. The man was toxic. Incapable of decency. He knew anything he could get himself wrapped up in with Megatron's 'Second' was bound to be bad for his health, but his _mind_ was working on it even when he wasn't actively pondering about it, thoughts clustering close to his brainstem so as to escape the notice of his cerebral cortex. His thoughts were so divided, his attention so exhaustedly fragmented, it was hard to say just when Skyfire came to the startlingly clear realization that Starscream was horribly unhappy where he was and was actually trying to change.

That last part could have been called into question by anyone (and was actually more of a product of Skyfire's awful humanist nature) but no one stumbled into a place of their youth like a lab and ranted to themselves, regretting their very life's course, if they were happy. He had just been lucky enough—or unlucky enough—to be in Starscream's place of purgatory when he came to torture himself. The Seeker disliked his job (or some portions of it) and perhaps he _wanted_ to change but didn't know how. Perhaps no one was giving him a chance.

That was a whole lot of 'perhap's, especially for a scientist who functioned on facts, but Skyfire felt a surprising lack of nervousness the following week while waiting for a surprise gaggle of visitors to file out of his lab. Starscream, there to check on his progress, was tapping his foot at the back, nails drumming on his official datapad.

Skyfire sensed a split-second opportunity, and he wasn't about to waste it. After the official tour group exited, Starscream lingered for a moment—just long enough for Skyfire to nudge his goggles down around his neck and clear his throat.

"Could you… get that?" he asked politely.

Starscream turned, bored. Skyfire nodded at a long tube of glass lying half-way across the room.

"The 200ml burette. I'm sorry, my hands are full."

Caught off-guard, Starscream looked in intense, basic confusion at the array of equipment, as if he'd never seen the alien devices before—but what was more alien was the thought of using them again after so many years. There was a definite reluctance to engage, as if he were scrutinizing Skyfire to see if they had shared the same experience a week ago, or if it had just been an alcoholic dream. Skyfire just smiled at him guilelessly over his shoulder, giving no hint of anything and, with a raise of his excellently hooked nose, Starscream officially decided that the previous week didn't happen.

He fetched the burette with a stuffy sigh, then, directly to plan, didn't move away after it was gently taken from his hands. Lingering just out of sight, he followed every movement of Skyfire's big, skilled hands as the scientist crushed and measured and distilled. The older man could practically feel interest coalescing and vibrating behind him, proven when he looked back and caught Starscream with a painfully attentive expression on his face. Before the Seeker could demolish it with his signature sneer, denying his voyeurism, Skyfire looked at him hopefully.

"Do you have time?"

"I have an hour to get back to the high-rise," Starscream said cautiously after a moment, as if the taller man were playing some sort of trick on him. Skyfire shrugged and smiled.

"Good. That'll give you time to suit up," Skyfire said, half-surprising himself—and Starscream, apparently—at how assuming he was being. He recanted with a slight shrug, turning back to his work. "If you don't mind helping me, that is. It'll just be a second and I don't have a personal assistant."

Any thought that Starscream would be momentarily offended by the idea of being his _assistant_ (inferior, really) was wiped away by the instinctive eagerness with which the younger man stepped up next to him and eyed the bottles and vials.

"Fine," he agreed, finally looking up at his old lab partner. "Where is the safety equipment?"

After he was fully suited in a white labcoat, Starscream did the fractional distillation along with him, carefully cataloguing test vials in his cramped, feminine script. The two men fell into step flawlessly, splitting the work between themselves. Being the senior scientist, Skyfire led him and Starscream took direction better than the former ever imagined.

He was a hard worker. He had indeed changed. Skyfire actually enjoyed the company, mostly because Starscream was forcibly silent, but still, it was better than being alone. He explained every step to the other man, who soaked it all in with a militant surety… and Starscream only attempted to lord over him once and it concerned a roll of tape, so it was excusable.

It wasn't happiness that he sensed in the other man, per se, but it was a definite kind of release that left Megatron's Second waving away Skyfire's ten and five-minute warnings–and at a loss of what to say when he finally had to leave and go back to his high-rise cage. Anyone with good grace would have thanked Skyfire, and anyone comfortable with the situation would have commented on the experiment itself, perhaps wishing success for it. As it was, Starscream reluctantly slipped out of his oversized lab-coat and lingered at the door with an unreadable expression on his face, then ducked out.

He was back with the next tour-group, and this time Skyfire didn't have to catch him immediately. The chemist waited until Starscream had straightened his tie, pretended to check the video cameras and cleared his throat. Only then did Skyfire turn around, forcing himself to hide his knowing, faintly pleased expression as he started it all over again.

"Could you, uh, get that burner for me?"

Starscream did not smile, but his expression of relief was as good as a grin. Skyfire offered his own goggles with a kind little smirk. Starscream muttered something about 'distracting him with such petty foolishness', snatched them away as though the whole thing were already a chore, and was by his side in the next moment, shoulders almost brushing.

Their hands knocked together, both reaching for the same pipette, and Starscream forgot to flinch away.


	40. Deal

A/N: So, you thought this whole Skyfire thing was going to take Starscream AWAY from Megatron and his deviousness, didn't ya? Awwwyea.

Sorry about the quietness from Lockdown and Prowl's end, I'm working on it and I have to make my time-lines match up. Keep holding your breath!

_Characters: Megatron, Starscream, mentioned Skyfire_

_Pairings: MegatronxStarscream_

_Notes: MegatronxCigars is actually my OTP. Starscream's just a fling. Yup._

* * *

Deal

* * *

One workday afternoon found Starscream walking up the hallway to his President's office, quickening his stride and clenching his fists in order to give himself the momentum he needed to open the door and do a very, very stupid thing.

For the past two weeks, he had been sneaking away to D-Con's shiny white lab compound every chance he had, and two weeks was more than enough to decide that he simply couldn't continue ducking out on lunch breaks and sprinting back to his desk in the high-rise. It was driving him mad. He would rush in, shedding his jacket and tie in the same moment and throwing on a labcoat, every iota of him focused on returning to whatever task Skyfire had assigned him to, regardless of how mundane it was. Most times, they didn't even have time to speak. Skyfire didn't seem to want to waste a nano-second of Starscream's hard-earned minutes, or have that piercing gaze directed toward him in any way.

Day after day, Starscream fairly ran to the gas chromatographer, catalogued samples, then he would check the time and resuit himself, once or twice throwing back a thought he'd had over the night. The most irritating thing was, he would start little experiments and never be able to see how they ended up. He just had to assume from Skyfire's silence that nothing good came of them, and he would wonder over what went wrong while trying to do the work he was being _paid_ for.

He was dislocated and befuddled, constantly scheming ways to separate himself from the high-rise to snag an hour or two in the lab that would ultimately prove unsatisfying. He had to actually be allowed to _work_ in both parts of his life or he would go insane. Thus resulted the very stupid act that actually graduated to a form of professional suicide when Starscream pushed open the heavy double-doors that led to Megatron's office, taking a bracing breath.

The tall, grey-suited man was standing like a column at his full-length windows, looking down over downtown Detroit with his hands clasped behind his back. Starscream cursed under his breath. He was expecting a brutal refusal and, if it had to happen, he would rather have it barked at him from a desk, from behind piles of the paperwork Megatron so detested. At least then he could get this stupid notion out of his head quickly and cleanly.

"Starscream. Unexpected," Megatron murmured from the window. His voice was unusually gravelly, as if he hadn't spoken for several hours. Thinking about it, he probably hadn't.

Their oh-so superior President was in the middle of a project. He was always uncharacteristically disjointed as he attempted to puzzle out their business' finer convolutions, and usually restrained himself to sentence fragments or orders until he had reached a solution to his problem. That also meant, with Megatron's distracted mindset, that there was no way to preface Starscream's request and no need. If he wanted something from the older man, Starscream would usually slink up to him and try to manipulate him, but now he couldn't bring himself to try.

There was something different about this: it was so outrageous it required deadly bluntness, if just because the uncharacteristic tactic might unnerve Megatron into agreeing. Now or never. Starscream grit his teeth.

"I want one half of every Wednesday off."

A blank silence followed his sudden demand, almost as if something—perhaps a value or a written contract--had been slapped across the face. Starscream would have winced if he hadn't been so accustomed to keeping his face both arrogant and unreadable. He could _feel_ Megatron frowning at the sunny chrome convolutions of the city below them.

"Ridiculous."

"A few hours is not ridiculous, only unreasonable."

"And what makes you think you have done anything to deserve it?" the President asked at length, tone empty of anything but curiosity.

"I will still be responsible for my assignments. I will still fulfill my quota. I only ask to be released from the building at noon every Wednesday for the foreseeable future." When Megatron looked over his shoulder, expression both dark and uncomprehending, Starscream tried not to take another deep breath and continued crisply, "The scientist I hired for the new project—a colleague of mine--is in need of a partner of sorts. I have experience."

"You are already Second to someone else, if I do not miss my guess, and are receiving good funds to perform that function," Megatron retorted stonily, breaking from his repose to reach into his pocket. He pulled out a cigar case and palmed a thick brown stick into his hand—another mid-project habit. "I cannot imagine anything an untrained businessman could do that your scientist couldn't. Research is not your function in this business. Hire someone else to do the job."

Wasn't that Megatron's credo? Hire someone else to do it. It was _practical_, but practicality wasn't everything. Neither was the efficiency he so prized. Starscream grit his teeth.

"There are many aspects of chemical engineering and not all can be handled by one man. Work like this requires a synergistic relationship."

Megatron had nothing to say to that. Starscream could feel, with a kind of slow dread, how unimpressed the older man was simply by the way he lit up his cigar and bit down on it. Blowing smoke against the glass, Megatron glared down at the dazzling Automaton city like it had done him a personal wrong—and perhaps it had. Starscream did not claim to know anything about his superior's past, but he did know one thing.

"With all due respect, sir, you aren't a chemist."

Megatron's slow backwards glance said _and neither are you_, but after a moment he smirked with unnerving pleasure. Starscream realized how utterly thin his argument was—had ever hoped to be--by the time Megatron turned and took a step toward him, amusement growing with every second. Starscream suddenly feared that look.

"What well-trained soldier has replaced my favorite Seeker?" Megatron mused, meandering forward to circle the thin man. "Even your insults are polite."

As Megatron moved behind him, Starscream simply stood and stared straight ahead with militant stiffness, making it clear he was waiting for a response. He could make no better argument than he just _wanted_ it. Emotional appeals did not have the slightest effect against the tyrant, however, and would more than likely be used against him in times to come. Fingers clamped atop his warm cigar, Megatron considered his Second from every angle.

"You believe that this science project is more important than your work here."

"I never made such a claim. My work here will remain unaffected, simply completed at a different time," Starscream clarified, keeping his back as straight as a board. "All I ask is time."

"Time which you have previously dedicated to me."

"Yes, sir."

Megatron's eyes lit slightly at the second _sir_—as rarely heard from Starscream as 'please' or 'thank you'. Except, of course, in a snide snarl. The older man paused and took a long, close drag on his cigar, pale grey smoke wafting between his fingers.

"I am in the middle of formulating a contract for a competitor. Inspiration could strike at any time, Wednesday afternoon included—and what then?"

"If you do not want to grant my request, President, it is entirely within your power to deny me," Starscream grit out, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. He knew the coy rhythm of being toyed with and tested, especially by a man who rarely missed a chance to deny him something… or see how high he would jump when badgered.

Unseen by his Second, a baffled, almost impassioned expression flashed over the older man's face. Megatron puffed hard for a moment, focusing on the satisfying, spicy warmth in his throat. The intense, dislocated expression of earlier stole him again, almost as though he were facing another puzzle--and he was. The greatest puzzle he had ever encountered, yet the one he wanted to solve the most.

While he thought, Starscream remained motionless. _Wordless_, motionless and oh-so obedient, directly after admitting the power his President held over him. At last, Megatron nodded.

"I will give you half of every Wednesday. As long as your performance does not suffer and you are made available in case of an emergency, you need only check in with Shockwave before you leave."

Starscream's skin contracted in sheer shock. He nodded sharply at the sunny picaresque squares of Detroit in front of him, trying not to show how thrilled he was, nor how he was almost _frightened_ that his stupid plan had worked. Just stomping in and asking for something like that was unheard of.

The Seeker didn't get over his shock and exit the room as he should have, escaping with his precious victory--and that was where Megatron's big hand managed to slide onto his arm, reawakening the paranoia of having the older man anywhere but straight in front of him with both hands in sight.

"I will, of course, expect something in return."

Starscream's scalp suddenly prickled, white neck warmed by an unseen mouthful of smoke. It was as though an iron hand had gripped his spine, paralyzing him and chasing his relief back under his taut muscles. How could he think this wouldn't be a deal?

Megatron paused, apparently content to let his Second's imagination run itself ragged before he finally spoke.

"I expect you to be at your door every Saturday at seven until your chemistry sojourn has ended."

"For _what_?" Starscream demanded incredulously, almost turning before he caught himself and locked his hands at his sides, cursing the crack in his façade.

"Dinner, you and I," the President answered simply. Then his fingers wandered down his Second's arm, voice dipping into a wry rumble. "Unless you can think of a more… fulfilling activity for a Saturday night."

Starscream nearly bit his tongue in half, and nearly threw the idiot off besides that, but kept both his silence and his stillness with a mind-blowing amount of effort. _Every_ Saturday? He would be forced to spend every Saturday evening alone with the President until he stopped working with Skyfire?

His mind spun and staggered, threat and annoyance warring with the lure of the lab in the background. This level of blackmail was _unthinkable_ and he nearly slapped the old man for having the gall to try. Megatron finally stepped in front of him, expression both amused and too confident to even _exist_. It was the expression of a man who couldn't wait to see what would result from the button he pushed, and that alone was enough to infuriate Starscream to no end.

In the end, however, Starscream caught his breath and inclined his head numbly. If there was one thing he couldn't stand more than not being able to take advantage of the new hobby, it was being forced to suit up and barely begin to immerse himself only to run out again thirty minutes later. It left him frustrated and unfocused all day. He had the drive and the ability, he just needed the _time_.

What was more, it wasn't every day an easily-coerced push-over like Skyfire came into his life… much less a push-over with a fully-stocked laboratory.

Starscream nodded again, more definite this time. Megatron looked at him in something like awe, not quite caring that his Second's gaze was fixed slightly to the left, nor that he was a shade paler than usual. The blood loss left him almost white, but Starscream's heels remained firmly planted.

"This must be very important to you, for you to take such… risks," Megatron murmured slowly, as if startled by his own victory.

It didn't take long for him to become comfortable with the idea. His hand ran gently down the Seeker's arm and he took care to release his pungent cigar smoke to the side, gaze locked on his Second's handsome face. He smiled.

"I look forward to Saturday."

"Yes, sir," Starscream said to the carpet, bowing shallowly. Fully aware of the President's gaze warming his back, he exited the office at a calm walk only to savagely kick the wall the moment the heavy doors closed behind him, fairly howling behind his teeth.

Science would be the death of him.


	41. The Start

A/N: Because I'm switching back and forth between so many happenings, chapters will be somewhat twitchy-ADD. And so the fun begins! YAAAAAY SLIPSTREAM. She feeds my lesbian neeeeeeds.

Also, because I'm a curious little creature, please vote in my profile poll! If there's an overwhelming result for one character-pair or otherwise, I'll put my mind to work. Thank you for reading and being so damn supportive, guys!

_Characters: Starscream, Megatron, Skyfire, Slipstream_

_Pairings: MegatronxStarscream, emerging StarscreamxSkyfire_

_Notes: Just for shizzles, remember Slipstream's canon designation: Starscream's clone that embodies, basically, his most intelligent qualities. She is Super-Scream, self-critical as hell and whittled down to only his 'good' traits (INCLUDING THE GHEY), without all of the flagrant flaws… so psycho-analyze away, folks._

* * *

The Start

* * *

Skyfire was incredibly glad to have Starscream as an assistant (_partner_) every Wednesday and asked only briefly about how he managed to get the time off from work. Already shielded behind his goggles, Starscream waved him off and asked what the synthesis updates were, leaving Skyfire to shrug awkwardly and oblige his unwillingness to speak of it.

The Seeker was never one for details, but he honestly didn't want Skyfire to know he was practically in bondage to his lord and employer in order to visit the lab every Wednesday. Such was the torture he was currently enduring, sitting stiffly at a two-man table across from the evil bastard on the first Saturday after their deal.

In some ways, it was picturesque: the establishment was a beautiful, warmly-lit restaurant with heavy plum curtains. The food was delicious, and certainly not in that obnoxiously frilly finger-sized-portion way. A slender young lady played the piano while they ate.

In every other way, none of that trash mattered in the slightest.

The Seeker had bitten back over twenty impatient sighs, reduced to playing with his food as the evening stubbornly refused to end. Megatron sat across from him, making polite conversation—in sum, forcing Starscream to bite back every nasty comment he wanted to make as the fool doddered on and on and _on_, as if they had never exchanged blows or screaming curses. After an hour and a few too many small, fork-clinking silences, Megatron actually began to bait him, as if seeing what would make him break rank. Starscream's resolve held. He found a fabulously civil response for everything his employer threw at him, always chasing it with a prim, unshaken sip of water.

Seeker family dinners were the best training in reserve that god could gift. If Megatron thought he could top _his_ family, he should stay for dinner one night. Starscream would be mightily surprised if he did not run out howling by dessert.

"You _are_ on your best behavior," Megatron chuckled at last. He sat forward with a truly impressed look, which made Starscream twitch and want to illustrate that by shoving a fork into his throat. A far cry from what he _wanted_ to do to the older man. Megatron smiled at him almost mischievously from over his clasped hands.

"You are not only abiding by the rules but making an effort to be _polite_. I wonder what has changed... What is worth silence when I gift-wrapped so many chances to insult me? What are you doing with your precious Wednesday afternoons?"

"You would find no interest in it," Starscream answered stiffly, fork suddenly frozen on his plate.

He was not expecting it, but he felt strangely secretive about his lab-coat escapes. Megatron needed to be as far away from the clean white lab as possible, both physically and mentally. Skyfire, in particular, never needed to meet the old warlord. The Seeker heir bowed his head.

"At this level, it would be nothing more than technojargon without the proper background."

"Humor me," Megatron pressed, fox smile growing as he took a sip of red-black wine. "It is interesting to see you take such an interest in our more exotic products."

Starscream twitched for the first time that night, but not through any assumed insult. The 'exotic product' Megatron spoke of so glibly was the activation compound for a nerve gas. An illegal nerve gas. Something Skyfire did not know he was synthesizing even as he assembled it bond by bond.

The chemist believed the brief explanation of the experimental petroleum product, as given to him in the informational packet. Or rather, he had no reason to _doubt_ it. Starscream didn't know whether to curse or bless his gullibility and utter lack of suspicion. The Seeker had worked with deception before, of course—he practically swam in it daily--but he didn't take well to sitting on _other_ people's deceptions and working within their invisible boundaries, unknowing of how well they were executed. He succeeded in putting it out of his mind, but when Skyfire grinned like he was _so excited to be there_, it was hard not to remember for a second.

When compared to five hours a week with the foolish genius, a second really wasn't that much.

Finally, conquered by Megatron's expectant stare, Starscream began to explain. He detailed the general approach to synthesizing the compound and the difficulties they were having. He even dipped briefly into how he processed and mixed and distilled until the moment he had to leave, as if hypnotized by the bright white lights of the lab. Megatron questioned him on minor details--elucidations on technical jargon, the particular purpose of a mentioned machine or process—but otherwise was a flawless listener and seemed to grasp a good deal of it.

Educated though he was, the older man had a secret that allowed him to divest his whole attention: Starscream himself. It didn't matter in the slightest what the young man was saying, honestly, but what _he_ got out of it. He was extraordinarily natural while speaking of exploits in the lab. Words flowed easily and with purpose, one after the other, and they were never used as the bullets Starscream so often fired. It was so much better than closed-minded little snarks. He seemed a whole new man.

He finished, Megatron supplied a single, honest 'Intruiging,' and they went back to their food.

After a short ride in the back of his President's chauffeured car, Starscream escaped into the dark night and was halfway to his apartment door before Megatron could so much as get out of his seat or reach for him. The older man had felt the Seeker tensing for three blocks, looking forcibly out at the slow, rain-slick slide of Detroit past the window… he honestly should have expected as much.

Megatron waited a moment or two, saw the light flick on in the upper left-most window, and ordered his driver on with a thoughtful yet indescribably determined expression.

* * *

Once the pressure of lunchtime trysts was off and they had a full afternoon to themselves (or rather, to their project), Skyfire began to start up little conversations.

They were doomed to sputter out after the first few exchanges—even in Iacon, it seemed Starscream never liked to talk—but soon Skyfire accepted that was simply the way they worked: in four-sentence increments. They went back and forth, mostly about the experiment at hand. It was nice to have some noise and some human contact. Occasionally, when the silence was particularly non-threatening, Skyfire would even make a stumbling attempt at a science joke—the only kind he knew—and Starscream would give a grim sort of smirk. Perhaps even an abiding snort.

After an afternoon or two, their coexistence began to have genuine sort of pleasure in it. This made Skyfire even braver—and even more curious about the Starscream that sat beyond the first four sentences. One day, he even dared to ask a question.

"It's nice, isn't it?"

Starscream, deep in a titration, looked up with sharp eyes that Skyfire had recently become accustomed to: the sharpness in them would not fade until his assigned task was completed. The Seeker was like a big red arrow, pointing strictly toward whatever he was focusing on. Skyfire couldn't help but marvel at his intensity, maybe even envy it a little.

"What."

"You know. This," Skyfire said, gesturing at the equipment in front of them, bubbling away with all kinds of processes and chemicals. He smiled contentedly. "Seeing results and doing… hard, honest work to get them."

Starscream scoffed slightly into his collar, swirling the titration carefully in his blue-gloved hand.

"Wouldn't say honest…"

"What?" Skyfire asked, puzzled, but Starscream had already cleared his throat and straightened, pushing on with the experiment with an oddly uncomfortable look on his face. An unusual silence chased them for the rest of the day.

* * *

"You drive," Starscream said flatly, buttoning his suit jacket against both the sudden gust of march wind and the sight of the car purring in front of his complex's curb.

"On the rare occasion," Megatron answered, smiling smoothly at him from his almost jaunty pose on the open window. Slap a newsies cap on him and… _no._ Revolting.

Starscream muttered something and got in the other side of the slick grey car, feeling indescribably awkward—and not _just_ because of the old fool's disturbingly pleasant smiles. It was the first time he had been in the passenger seat of _anything_ in years. He was either the driver or in the back seat being ferried around, always.

It was strangely… intimate to be next to someone while they drove. Besides, he knew the reason for the sudden rearrangement: Megatron didn't want any witnesses. He wanted to be free to do whatever he pleased on their outings without a questioning eye, regardless of how much Astrotrain had likely been paid to forget over the years.

The drive passed without comment, and without the hand on his leg that Starscream (or rather, Starscream's elbow) was so _incredibly_ ready for. Dinner went moderately better than before, though nothing worth bragging over. He still spent half of it tapping his foot and being ridiculously, almost Sunstorm-style obliging, which hadn't bored Megatron to tears yet. Then again, the windbag thought himself terribly clever and could talk about anything for any length of time, and found little else to do in wake of his Second's unwillingness to speak.

Starscream could fast sense the whole mess becoming a ritual, unpleasant but unquestioned and quick. When it came time to escape for the second time, however, Megatron managed to catch him off-guard with something as simple and unexpected as the slam of the driver-side door. Starscream looked back, confused, then spent the next four floors being walked to his door like a teenaged girl returning from her first sock-hop.

The gesture, both chivalrous and pointless, made Starscream's back prickle furiously. Megatron's presence was suffocating enough and the effort it took to remain _nice_ for two nights nearly killed the Seeker—was he to endure mockery as well? That first night in front of his door, Megatron only compounded his legion of out-of-date shortcomings by taking Starscream's hand and pressing his white knuckles to his lips. Then he touched his fedora and smiled, even after the younger man ripped his hand away with an offended hiss.

"Until Saturday."

"Until Monday," was Starscream's snappy response, which apparently struck Megatron as hilarious: he could hear the older man laughing down the hallway, before and after the infuriated slam of his door.

* * *

The very next Tuesday, Starscream walked into one of the high-rise's elevators and stopped beside his sister, their pair of eagle noses cocked at precisely the same angle. The few years separating them were nothing in the face of their near-identical features, but neither could the span account for their internal differences. The door clicked shut and the spacious elevator began a heavy downwards crawl. Unusual, as the elevators were usually fast as lightning.

Even in the face of the elevator's strange behavior, no casual words were exchanged, not even a nod. After a moment, Slipstream breathed in sharply, then turned to look at her younger brother with an expression bordering on disgust. He glared back at her.

"What?" Starscream fairly whined. He raised his thick bundle of reports unconsciously, almost as if it would shield him from her constant criticisms. Slipstream sniffed one more time and snorted, glaring stonily at the circles representing all fifty floors.

"You _smell_ like him."

Starscream's eyes narrowed, equal parts offended and disturbed. The idea of _smelling_ like Megatron made him want to shuck his clothes and bathe in acid—and why the hell would she know what he smelled like? Or take the time to point it out? His suspicious nature put his organs in a sudden vice. What was she implying?

"That's what happens when you're trapped in a room with him and his damn cigars. He puffs like a chimney when he has a new harebrained project," Starscream muttered pointedly, rubbing at his lapels as though he could chase the spicy scent away. "If he goes on much longer, my dry-cleaning bill is going to eat my salary whole."

Megatron's other project habit was fairly locking his Second in his office as a 'listening ear' until he had hammered out a game-plan. Starscream's only comfort was that, with an apparent vent for his indecent urges on Saturday, Megatron was incredibly businesslike the _entire_ time. The elevator was quiet for a moment as Slipstream absorbed his excuse. The siblings seemed to watch the floors slip past in slow-motion, then the elevator suddenly bounced on its strings, clanging to a halt. Starscream immediately frowned, then tapped his foot and checked his watch. There was no answer when he pushed at the emergency button.

"Have you two planned your next outing yet, or is it a weekly thing now?" Slipstream asked after a minute, blank tone somehow horrifying once it all _clicked_.

Starscream gaped over at her, neck instantly red. He felt as if someone had opened his chest and yanked something out, like a fanbelt or a vital bit of piping. No one was supposed to _know_.

"I saw you at the Coach last week. I was having dinner myself, but you were too absorbed in your current company to notice," she continued, then looked at her little brother in earnest for the first time. She might as well have spat every sentence, dark eyes lidded with a brand of contempt so natural it wasn't even present. "Do you stop at nothing? Or do you just miss the smell of his cigars?"

"You think..?" Starscream began, then ruffled his feathers and muscled his outrage down. He sneered down his nose at her as he tried not to cringe at the thought of who _else_ knew. "If you think I would _willingly_ have dinner with that pompous idiot, you're sadly mistaken."

"If it would get you a promotion of any kind, I think you would be willing to fill in for his foot-rest for a week," she responded, lip curled. "But honestly, I'm surprised he lets you within five feet of an open cup."

"Apparently he thinks it worth the risk, although I haven't the slightest idea what he _thinks_ he's going to get out of this," Starscream muttered defensively. He knew he had made precisely the wrong statement when Slipstream's fine brows rose oh-so mockingly.

"I can't imagine."

"What are you implying?" Starscream demanded, teeth bared.

"Perhaps he just wants to spend some more quality time with you. You are his _favorite_ person, and so pleasant to be around."

"He's obsessed with me!" Starscream burst out, shrill voice clanging unpleasantly inside the closed elevator. Slipstream, unimpressed, turned back to the un-lit numbers.

"The only thing the President is obsessed with is our net profit."

"You think I'm lying? _He's_ the one who contracted me for a dinner a week! It wasn't my idea!"

Still no change came over her icy features--why did no one _believe_ him? No matter how much proof he presented, everyone would assume it to be just another one of his schemes. They thought Megatron to be morally incorrect but functionally perfect: objective, incapable of lust or personal interest or undignified behavior. How they would balk if they saw how the codger pawed at him!

Starscream opened his mouth to say something further, but the elevator jerked back into slow motion, making him stumble. Slipstream had put him off balance in more ways than one. As if sensing weakness, both in his ankles and his argument, his sister snorted.

"It sounds like your wet dream," she said dryly. "A rich, powerful man pining after you, fighting to take you to dinner."

"I think you're confusing me with someone else," Starscream snapped, voice sharp, almost dangerous. Slipstream merely turned to stare at him again, eyes cold.

"That depends on who you're impersonating today, darling Star."

Starscream bristled at the nickname, imbedded deep in his childhood. It called a certain rigidity over him, always inciting the same ugly, wary expression. Unwaveringly, she stared at him until certain he wouldn't say anything more, then crossed her arms.

"It better not go anywhere."

"I _hate_ him!" Starscream said indignantly, incapable of seeing how she didn't already _know_ this.

"And I know a good number of people you hated and screwed anyways," she answered flintily. "It was your hobby."

Starscream went apoplectic. He may have made time for some distractions in high-school and it was _great_ fun to make men obsess over him against their will—or even better, question their very sexuality when in his talented hands—but that was not the _point_! He puffed and sputtered, trying to eke a coherent sentence out of his rage.

"That was over ten years ago, you can't fucking hold me to that! This—this isn't even the same thing. And I'm not _stupid_!"

For the second time, the elevator bobbed to a stop, floor fourteen glowing out of the wall. The door opened on a featureless hallway; Slipstream turned back and glowered at him, almost exhausted with the force of her irritation. For her, it was astounding and crippling to see how fast he turned into a bawling brat when she knew him to be so intelligent—and similarly, how he turned into a depraved imbecile when she knew him to be capable of so much more. She watched him fuss agitatedly at the gold pin on his tie—the one he wore habitually, a token of the man he claimed to hate so much--and muttered,

"Just keep it in your goddamn pants."

"You tell _him_ that!" Starscream hissed after her. The door closed on her retreating form, trapping him for the next few floors while he fumed and tapped his foot.

How dare she still think of him as the same child he was in high-school? He was a man. Capable of resisting temptation—either his own or others. And why the _hell_ couldn't anyone believe that _Megatron_ was the one chasing skirts—or heels--without an ounce of provocation from him? Why was everyone so eager to catch him with that old noose?

Without even realizing it, Starscream was digging his nails into his palm and gritting his teeth, the little self-abuses lost in the rush of offense and adrenaline. He was threatening to get wrapped up in himself again, in the convolutions of sourceless anger and ego… then he thought of the next day. Wednesday.

The day he would be able to leave all the dark, rich, sly woods and colors and words of the high-rise and get back into Skyfire's white lab and forget about things for a while. Charmingly straight-forward procedures. Charmingly straight-forward man. Simple.

Suddenly, most of the ire evaporated through his suit-jacket, leaving him with only the smell of cigars. It was strange. At times like these, he thought of Skyfire and half the prickles left his skin.

Taking a deep breath, Starscream tucked his folders under his arm and went to meet the representative of a rival company, as ordered, at the door to D-Con Industries.

* * *

"Can you come in tomorrow?"

"Don't be stupid," Starscream responded mechanically, rinsing out the last of the GC vials with acetone. The liquid spilled over his hands, creating a brief flash of perfect iciness before it evaporated into the chemical hood. He had missed the feeling, he realized, even with as often as he had left Skyfire to do the clean-up back at Iacon. Behind him, past the methodical chug of the centrifuge, he heard Skyfire groan and tap at something, possibly his forehead.

"I feel like we're really close to a breakthrough. I need you."

Glassware frozen in his hands, Starscream turned around slowly, as if not believing his ears. Who on earth said something like that aloud? Poised on a swivel chair with his laptop on his knee, Skyfire looked at him with perfect, innocent blankness, chin perched in his hand.

"I think better when you're around," he admitted, then shook his head with clear disappointment. He scrubbed his hand through his blond hair, chuckling weakly. "I'm—sorry, I don't mean to be so demanding. It's almost like I forget that you have a job. Sorry."

Starscream only huffed irritably, because if only he _didn't_ have that job—or at least so much of that job—he would be with Skyfire a lot more.

No, he corrected himself with a sour expression. He would be in the lab a lot more. An odd correction, yes, but one he felt necessary to make in his own head. He was doing this for science. Skyfire was just one of many circumstances that allowed him to be there. That was how it was.

"Hey, Starscream…"

Starscream looked back for the third time, an irritated rebuke already sitting on his tongue (because Skyfire was already forcing him to do clean up, after all), but stopped cold at the sight of huge, disheveled Skyfire wiping off his glasses on his labcoat with a sweet look on his face.

"Thanks," he said to the floor, smiling as he shut his laptop. He perched the square-rimmed things back on his nose and finally looked up somewhat shyly. "I really… you know. I really appreciate it."

"I'm sure," Starscream muttered, which wasn't what he wanted to say at all.

It was all that came out with the sudden clamp on his insides, when faced with the palpable rush of clean, genuine gratitude from another living creature. The feeling was like getting slapped in the face, just without the pain.

Then the Seeker heir flushed for the first time in years at how unspeakably stupid he felt with Skyfire looking at him like that—with his brow creased, his blue eyes sad, like the chemist wanted to ask him if he was alright. Starscream abandoned his labcoat and ducked out before he could, if just because he didn't know the answer.

No one had asked him that in years.

* * *

"Don't be so goddamn coy!"

He couldn't restrain himself the second time Megatron took his hand and raised it to his lips—and, as the silence stretched on, Starscream realized it was the single-most awful mistake he could have committed.

Who in their right mind called _Megatron_ out on his level of directness? But the ridiculousness of it just drove Starscream mad. The President was so disgustingly _theatric_. He—the man, his habits, his gall, his deep chuckle, his _handkerchiefs_--just made the Seeker's head ready to explode. Moreso, with what he knew Megatron to truly want, the gesture went beyond a pleasant joke. It was calculated mockery.

Starscream was both efficient and unflinchingly realistic: he would almost rather the old man lick his face and slap his ass and just be done with it.

Brows high, Megatron lowered his hand but did not let it go, and Starscream glared up at him. If only he had moved away; if only the ensuing offense had happened quickly enough for him to rage about it afterwards, to shriek about being caught off-guard. Instead, Megatron looked at him appraisingly, waited, then leaned down. And down. And _down_.

It was only by a god-blessed spasm of his neurons that Starscream managed to jerk his head to the side at the last minute, expression that of a cartoon rabbit caught in a trap. The move left Megatron with the canvas of his Second's cheek to work his evils with. The older man chuckled softly and kissed his cheek, then exited with the same tap of his hat.

After slamming his door, Starscream hid himself in his apartment and sagged against the first wall he touched, grimacing into his hand. His boss had kissed him like a ten-year-old and his world hadn't exploded yet. This denied some vital law of his universe and the Seeker hardly slept that night, wondering where the hell he was in relation to everyone else inhabiting the blue-black city outside his curtained bedroom windows.

Good or bad, something was closing in from both sides and everything else was getting the tiniest bit… fuzzy.


	42. Step Two

A/N: Weeee! Everything is getting confusing as hell!

Forgive the poetical-waxings on the plane part. Eugh. Also, the image of Starscream as Mrs. Kennedy won't leave me alone. PBBBLLT. My shame, where did it go?

Awwww I never had it :[

(BTW, I don't know if anyone's forgotten from Calling and Lesson, but, uh… Skyfire's straight. Like, really straight. He's just not a very manly man. Just puttin' that back out there. Kay. Leavin' you to it, now.)

_Characters: Megatron, Starscream, Skyfire, Seeker Brood_

_Pairings: MegatronxStarscream, StarscreamxSkyfire, dysfunctional TC-SS-SW brotherliness_

_Warnings: Mentioned sexual activities via Star and Slipstream, language. Although, I must also warn you that I'm desperately trying to reconcile the Trine's G1 incarnations with their rather staggeringly one-dimensional TFA incarnations. Note, _desperately_, therefore I'm not to be held accountable for any ugly hybrids that come out. Eek._

* * *

Step Two

* * *

The black marble of the conference hall seemed to soak up the night outside, projecting its own milkyway underneath the Seekers' feet. It was echoing and somehow hypnotizing, especially for those who had gone to bed early and been woken up by Soundwave's broadcast. A coffee pot was being passed around just for good measure. All of the brood suffered in uncharacteristic silence until Thundercracker dared whack his mug down on the table and slouch into his chair.

"What's so urgent that he calls us all in at eleven-o-clock?"

"He runs on his own time, you know that," Slipstream responded dully, sipping at her black-as-death coffee. Megatron was so work-focused that often he couldn't wait to share an idea or a new course of action—and eleven-o-clock on a Friday seemed like as good a time as any. Besides, he owned all of their souls: they would turn cartwheels and sing if he said the word.

"He caught me mid-fuck," Starscream growled into his crossed arms, plastered flat to the table in a picture of dejection.

Not that the man had been particularly good, but ever since the Gala, Starscream had been making a pointed effort to reconnect with sex. It helped take the steam off of the gritty attraction that inevitably pulled him towards the President. It was especially vital now, with their 'extra' time together. He told himself it was just healthy to screw as often and as long as possible, but the fact remained that, with enough hookups, Starscream could resist anything from a quirk of Megatron's brows to the velvet lion smirk the older man gave when truly pleased. He would have gone insane otherwise.

…Yes, he was _handsome_. Being a creature of aesthetics himself, Starscream couldn't help but appreciate his boss' pleasing exterior… but that didn't change the fact Megatron was disgusting and idiotic and generally the most repulsive human being on the planet. It just made the Seeker less inclined to punch him in the face as opposed to any other vulnerable body part.

"Doesn't he always?" Slipstream sighed, looking similarly put-out.

Starscream glanced at her, unsurprised. Knowing her, she had probably had to slip out from between someone's breasts that night. The rest of their brothers looked jealous that she had a pair to herself plus one more. All except for Skywarp, of course, who had turned red and was looking at the ceiling with a rather determined expression, and Sunstorm, who was asleep on the table.

All of them sat back and sighed about something or other, bemoaning why they weren't in a certain place (or simply relieved that Shockwave wasn't already in the meeting room, staring at them from the corner in his creepy way). Soundwave was excused from this one, it seemed, and Megatron was on his way. Starscream looked up grumpily when someone poked him between his shoulder-blades. That someone turned out to be Thundercracker, expression equal parts interested and snide.

"So where have you been sneaking off to every Wednesday, Screamer?"

"None of your business," Starscream muttered, turning his head aside. He didn't have to pretend to be an adult with his brothers: there was just no point. Behind him, Thundercracker and Skywarp exchanged a glance.

"Has _he_ been s-sending you on…" Skywarp gulped, unable even to finish his question: even as his only mistakes were committed through accident, it was always his greatest fear that Megatron would decide to punish him by sending him on one of the gun runs. It literally kept him up at night and made him drop whatever he was holding whenever the silver-haired man came within five feet of him.

"At noon on a Wednesday?" Starscream sneered. He was eager to get off the subject of his absences and abusing Skywarp was a good way to do that. He rolled his eyes. "Yes, I wear my _fashionable_ bulletproof vest. Idiot."

"I've seen you around with that old Iacon buff," Slipstream put in, merciless as always. She sat back with a proud smirk, which grew inestimably prouder when Starscream turned to _gape_ at her. "You know. The handsome blond one."

Incredulity and waspish conviction warred in Starscream, producing a singularly ugly expression. He had met Skyfire at D-Con's warehouses to get him supplies _once_—was Slipstream resorting to just following him around now? Besides, Skyfire wasn't _handsome_, he was cute at best and mediocre at worst. No, nothing above decent, especially not with that haircut and those hokey polo shirts… and those shapeless khakis.

"Like Starscream can get anyone attractive," Thundercracker snorted, breaking his brother's reverie over the same subject.

Somehow, Skyfire became a whole lot more attractive in the space of three seconds.

"He's more than handsome--and I'm your _genetic duplicate_, imbecile!" Starscream screeched, uncommonly pricked by his brother's habitual arrogance. Thundercracker ignored him.

"Triplicate, actually," Skywarp offered helpfully, as if not wanting to be forgotten. Starscream glared at him, grabbing up his coffee cup.

"Stuff it, Skywarp."

"So what's the deal with the Iacon guy?" Thundercracker demanded, also ignoring his younger triplet's intensely grateful look. Skywarp scooted his chair closer to his, begging further protection.

"I hired him," Starscream answered after a moment, well aware of Slipstream's sharp eyes on him. It was as if she were beginning to make a connection between his vehemently-protested dinners with Megatron and his absences on Wednesday, and Starscream wasn't sure if he felt comfortable with that.

"Off the record?" Thundercracker asked dubiously.

"You _did_ ask permission, didn't you?" Skywarp whispered, ducking his head when Starscream glared at him again.

"Starscream would _never_ sneak behind Megatron's back for anything," Ramjet put in innocently.

"Megatron doesn't need to be bothered with minutia like this. Besides, he's a project of mine. Like a… pet," Starscream grit out, completely unaware of where the hell he was getting his words from. He would simply fall over and die if Skyfire ever found out, and it was a thought that unnerved him with its suddenness and truth—where had he got off caring about what other people thought?

When he realized his siblings were still staring at him, waiting for more on his Wednesday escapades, Starscream hid in his coffee cup and grasped for something to say. Most particularly, he grasped for a title that wasn't 'assistant'.

"I'm testing him to see whether he'll be able to move up our ranks. Otherwise, I…check up on his progress and tell him what he's doing wrong."

"_Every_ Wednesday?" Slipstream asked, incredulous.

"There's a lot to cover," he shot back thornily, then his expression and pose suddenly turned unnervingly silky, fingers wandering to his orange tie. "Although I wouldn't expect you to understand the convolutions of our finer products, Slipstream, with your limited exposure to technical science."

He was the only one of them who had made it into Iacon Academy, though one other Seeker had tried. Slipstream's expression darkened dangerously. Starscream smirked at her, radiating expert superiority as he finished off the rest of his sugar- and cream-saturated coffee.

"I want a pet scientist," Ramjet said curiously, ignored by all.

"You help him? What do you even… do?" Skywarp asked, scooting his chair even closer to Thundercracker. He looked plainly terrified at the idea of being around all of those volatile chemicals, any one of which could tip over at any moment and burn him to cinders. Starscream gave him a withering look.

"_Science_," he said with hushed, snotty reverence, wiggling his fingers. He didn't manage to duck when Thundercracker whapped him over the head with an audible smacking noise.

"Lay off of 'Warp," he growled.

"Don't _hit_ me!" Starscream hissed viciously, backhanding Thundercracker in the chest.

"Please don't!" Skywarp pleaded, but by then two more blows had already been exchanged and his brothers' dark eyes were locked, teeth bared.

The two got into a brief, noisy slap-fight which might have turned truly violent with a grabbing of Starscream's tie (and an exasperated curse from Slipstream), but everything immediately froze when the door boomed open, heralding the arrival of their boss and Lord. Thundercracker and Starscream parted with a silent snarl. All of them rose with militant attention and stayed standing until Megatron seated himself at the head of the table. The meeting began.

It was long and important, even if it could have waited until next week. It also involved a lot of extricating themselves from relationships with other companies, which promised an unholy amount of work for the next week, which send a silent ripple of despair through the assembled Seekers. Shockwave looked unaffected and perfectly put-together, as always. He probably just sat at home in uniform and _waited_ for Megatron to call these meetings, Starscream thought snidely.

At two in the morning, Megatron dismissed them all without a second glance, something both Starscream and Slipstream noticed. Halfway to the door, they caught each others eye, but Starscream gave his older sister a defiant look and stalked out before he could read anything on her face. The only thing he would find there was suspicion and half-formed accusations, and he hadn't the time for any of that, especially not with the coming week's trials and travails.

Think what she may, nothing was going to happen with Megatron the next day, or any day after: his pride would make sure of that.

* * *

"Where in the world are we going?"

The grey car, familiar by now, was speeding past the limits of Detroit with Megatron at the wheel, overtaking cars left and right on the highway. Starscream had bitten his tongue for fifteen minutes, and had indeed been biting it since the old fool called him at eleven in the morning and ordered him to be at his door at noon. Megatron met him at the front desk in a turtleneck, blazer and slacks, something which nearly caused the younger man's jaw to drop.

Megatron's traditional business suit had become something like grey silk armor in Starscream's eyes. This was like seeing a gladiator naked, even though the image wasn't too far off with the way the tight charcoal knit hugged his _damnably_ chiseled chest. It almost made Megatron seem… _human_. A terrifying thought, and one Starscream was adamantly opposed to. He immediately turned his nose up and got into the car without further comment, ignoring Megatron's subtly pleased-slash-amused expression that was probably a product of his Second's chique aviators, skintight dark jeans and oh-so designer shirt.

Not only did he intensely dislike change, Starscream was immediately suspicious of the interruption in their ritual. Technically, lunch was still a meal and he would have rather liked to be spared the intrinsically _romantic_ (or at least sexual) atmosphere of evening… but then the President just kept driving. Starscream had neglected to eat beforehand and road-trips weren't his idea of a good time, putting him in a sourer mood than usual.

"I _said_, where are we going?"

"I cannot tell you," Megatron said almost soothingly, readjusting his review mirror as Starscream squinted at him suspiciously.

There was a good chance that it might have been dearly classified information. There were some things Megatron did not share with his top 'officers' out of a sincere and functional want for their safety… but with their non-business _outing_ combined with the older man's content smile, Starscream realized he was being led somewhere under an imaginary handkerchief.

"A secret destination?" Starscream stared at him disbelievingly, then sat back and scoffed, "What am I, three?!"

"It's difficult to tell sometimes," Megatron said somberly, taking an exit Starscream had never seen before. He sped up with a purr of a motor as more of Michigan's humble forest-streaked wilderness crowded against the road, March sun shining brightly onto the trees.

Just before Starscream was about to ask his boss outright whether he was dragging him out in the middle of nowhere to murder him, a squat concrete building crawled up over the horizon, lonely and grey. Starscream straightened self-consciously in his seat when Megatron pulled up to a manned way station and flashed an ID his Second had never seen. The guard nodded, lifted the partition and let them through.

The fenced-in area had all the grey, bare earmarks of a government testing facility or military base. Starscream decided on the latter once he saw barracks. In the cool inside of the biggest concrete building, Starscream was told to wait—something he didn't appreciate—while Megatron went into an office. A man with a crew cut rose to meet him, shaking hands firmly. He was dressed in grey-blue fatigues and Starscream could have sworn he had seen the commander somewhere before. Then again, D-Con dealt with military men all the time. It wasn't surprising, considering they both specialized in delivering devastation. From there, President and Second were led out of the echoing base and into the sun, where a vast plane of velvety-grey concrete stretched out in front of them… decorated with huge, slick jets lined up like toys.

As Megatron made deep-voiced conversation with the military man, Starscream stared up as though all other humans had disappeared from the earth, mouth open just slightly.

The Seeker was caught between being royally pissed that Megatron had dared use one of their outings for a business meeting—he was worth more than that, damnit, even if he didn't want to be there in the first place—and being struck with jet-rapture. They were so sharp and elegant and dangerous-looking. Feral cats of the sky. He had seen pictures—who hadn't—but nothing compared to being close enough to see every delicate seam-line in the intricate metal monsters. With all the secret panels and shielded wiring and the sense of thousand-pound weightiness they gave off, he felt like he was staring at something living.

He had had brief dreams of being a pilot. They lasted until he was nine, when his mother stopped tolerating them. It wasn't that he'd never had the money to take recreational piloting lessons or even buy his own plane—either was easy—but he had never had the time. Time was very important. Money could get you anything, except more time on earth.

Starscream wandered along behind the two older men as they talked, gazing upwards as they walked underneath dark wings. He was dazzled time and again by the blue sky that reappeared past the black knife's edge of their ailerons. The commander stopped them at a particularly sleek jet. It was an odd purple-tinged grey with mauve streaks on the wings, making Starscream instantly appreciate its unabashed flashiness while at the same time wondering what use it would be stealth-wise. But then the Commander explained: it was their fastest model. There was no need for stealth if it could zip in and out of a battleground without being hit.

It was a futuristic prototype that went back to the archaic F-15 jet roots, fusing past and present _and_ future. Starscream heard little more as the commander energetically went into the logistics of weapons. He kept mentioning a project Starscream himself had headed, his most recent pride and joy. Starscream didn't even have the mind about him to be ridiculously proud that everyone wanted to get their hands on his freshly-patented null rays, until Megatron looked towards him and said something that somehow penetrated his haze.

Starscream looked over, expression stymied. He absolutely refused to believe what he had just heard—absolutely refused to believe that even _Megatron_ would torture him this intensely--until Megatron gave a knowing, just-barely-superior smile and said it again.

"Would you care to fly it? I am not one to take such eloquent praises at face value and I can think of no one's opinion I would trust more than my Second's."

"You're insane," Starscream said at last, voice flat. Megatron returned his blank stare evenly. He tried not to imagine what a living mess of dark, intimate wires and levers the cockpit would be. He tried to imagine himself in that tangle. He swallowed. "You're serious?"

"Yep. So long's you bring a friend," the commander said, nodding over at an approaching pilot. It was a woman dressed in baggy grey-blue flight-suit, who threw Starscream one to zip over his clothes. As he put the rumpled sack over his jeans, his heart started beating faster. It gave a great toe-curling squeeze when she handed him a head-set and climbed up the jet first, popping its cockpit. Starscream's scalp prickled to see the well-greased, complicated array of lavender plating that slid away to permit it.

The young man climbed up the footholds, trying to get over the sudden shock of being practically ordered to live his dream. Then he looked down behind him, if just to get a last impression of the ground he would be leaving… and found Megatron looking up at him with something close to expectant fondness. Starscream was saved from the older man's grey eyes by the pilot's hand reaching out and tugging him all the way into the cockpit.

It was just as intricate as he had imagined. The small script on all of the levers and joysticks turned into some kind of cryptic foreign language through the sheer concentration of awe in his blood. When the yellow UV-protected glass of the cockpit closed over them, enclosing the two humans in padded silence, Starscream put his hand over the steering stick and just breathed out as the jet underneath him breathed in with a whine of turbines.

There was a reason this jet was so special. The woman behind him led his wrists into chunky sensor bands and snapped something around his neck. Instantly, like a disk popped into a slot he never knew existed, Starscream could feel the jet's orientation on the ground—and he wanted to go up.

Of course there was a pilot behind him, fully ready to override his controls if he did anything idiotic, but for once Starscream wasn't concerned with the implication he might mess up. The pilot let them up into the sky and the Seeker sat back and simply 'felt' the change in temperature through the auxiliary sensors. Fascinating tech, this: created to test-drive a 'synergy' between pilot and plane, sensitive to everything from air-currents to disturbances from cloaked planes. For a moment they just hovered in the wide periwinkle sky—and then, when the jet's engine kicked in and slammed him against the sound-barrier, Starscream hollered.

It was the most ungoverned noise he had made in his entire life: he just _howled_ as the pressure dropped around him and the Gs smashed him against his seat. He howled like fratboys at a kegger or a Redsox fan who finally saw the right game. He didn't even care there was someone else in the plane. It felt so—fucking--_good_.

Blue. Even if the sky was green through the cockpit glass, he knew where he was. He could feel it all around him.

He did barrel rolls (his arms pushing over in the water, twisting) and merciless dives (except every instant was like the one pristine moment he broke the surface of the pool) and all the while the power in the sleek, awesome machine beneath him nearly made him shake. He was revisited by the old, retired fantasies he'd always had of slicing clouds open, but he could _feel_ the sun warming the upper carriage of the beautiful jet.

It was so fast, so confident. Seeing the sky tilt sharply when he yanked the shifter to the left was incredible. Even he could say that the hook-in tech didn't offer any practical value except a fine experiment in neurological adaptations, but the jolt of temperature and pressure and wind took him beyond the cockpit and into the blue.

After what seemed like a few paltry minutes, the pilot tapped into his headset and told him to take it around low and decelerate as steadily as he could. Starscream's internal pressure dropped with every foot, like the closer the ground came, the lower his heart sank to meet it. After she landed it, he fairly staggered out of the jet, hitting the ground hard, on the wrong edge of his boots, as though he'd never been meant to walk there. He immediately turned and looked up at it as the pilot hooked it up to take it back inside, adrenaline still pumping hard through his chest.

They had landed at the beginning of a drill-run, apparently: there were jets going up all over the place, pilots jogging over the tarmac. He watched them slice off into the sky in a mixture of wonder and intense envy. Starscream pried off the clamp-like earphones they'd given him and the full load of air-noise hit him like a train. The screaming of jet engines and the ripping of air; the silky heat-waves from the engines and the utter ruckus it took to leave the ground.

Starscream only realized Megatron was at his side when the older man's hand cupped his elbow, making him turn. He was too thrilled to even edge away, but rather leaned in when the President said something. All of it was lost in the rush of jets around them. Starscream squinted and gestured at his ears, mouthing 'what?'. Megatron leaned into his ear, blazer flapping wildly in the gusts, but all he heard was slight noises even though he was clearly shouting—then the plane next to them went silent.

"--said, that was impressive," came Megatron's full, deep voice in his ear. Starscream felt his hard chest against his back. "You took to the skies quite naturally."

Starscream went stiff in a single second, realizing with a full-body flush how _close_ the other man was. After the rush of flying the jet, the Seeker had apparently forgotten to bring his first line of defense: his constant suspicion. He couldn't even jerk away because the commander was walking up to them with an easy, expectant swagger, freezing the young man in place. Megatron not only failed to release him but slipped an arm around his Second's back, nodding at the commander.

"I take it you enjoyed our baby."

"Amazing," was all Starscream could manage, stepping forward and pumping the generals hand vigorously, still quite aware of the big man's hand lingering on his back. Before he could move away, Megatron stepped up to him and took him around the waist, reaching past him to shake the hand of the general.

He held his Second easily, like some presidential wife, and it was all Starscream could do to _care_ while he watched said 'baby' jet being wheeled into the hangar, trapped again from the air. Somewhere to the left of him, Megatron invaded his personal space and made nice at the same time.

"—of course. I will consider your words very closely. Thank you for your time."

"Always good to have you around, President," the commnder said, giving a brief salute and a bold grin. "You and your products. Looking forward to those null rays."

After the young man peeled off his borrowed flight-suit, they exited the field at a strict pace, ducking from another gust of turbine wind. The moment Starscream recovered his senses, however, he freed himself from Megatron's arm with a dearly-delayed scathing noise. The older man didn't take offense but merely looked pleased he had managed it at all and slipped his hand back into his blazer pocket, watching his Second stalk away a few steps in front of him.

Even then, knowing his dislike for touch, there was no verbal abuse. Starscream was unusually quiet. They didn't speak until they were halfway back to the city, when Starscream suddenly looked up from a careful contemplation of his hands.

"How much did that cost?"

Megatron looked over at him and sat back with a faint smile, taking one hand off the steering wheel.

"A favor has no price."

_Which is why it's your perfect requirement_, Starscream thought sullenly. No matter how terrifying the numbers might seem at the time, it was always safer to pay the President with cash and end the deal right there. The Seeker turned to stare out of the window for the rest of the drive until the chrome beauty of the Automaton city closed around them, bringing with it the very beginning of the rush-hour traffic. At four in the afternoon, the President wheeled easily back into the drop-off in front of his Second's apartment complex.

"My most valuable possession is my time," Megatron said suddenly when Starscream had one foot out the door. Starscream looked back, surprised; the big man reached up to adjust his review mirror again and gave him a quick, handsome smile, one hand on the button that would close the door. "You may want to ask yourself what I am choosing to spend on you, dear Seeker."

The door shut with a click, enclosing him in the grey car, and he drove away, leaving Starscream standing alone on the sidewalk for five long, long minutes until the hunger pangs woke him and chased him inside.

* * *

The next Wednesday, Starscream opened the laboratory door to find Skyfire hunched in front of his laptop. It was usual. The chemist's poor posture was gong to kill him one day and it wasn't going away anytime soon: he had spent twenty-something years _teaching_ himself to slouch to hide his incredible size from the passerby… or the occasional football coach who was looking to recruit.

Starscream didn't waste time sighing, but froze with his suit jacket in-hand when he saw a white box in Skyfire's huge hands. Two other little white boxes dotted the countertop behind him. Starscream stared for a moment, uncomprehending of the new chemical containers, then realized it was _food_. His hackles immediately shot up.

"No food in the lab!"

"No chance've contamination. N'it's my lab," Skyfire mumbled dumbly through a mouthful of _something_, only to make an excruciatingly disappointed noise when Starscream stole the box right out from under his mouth, leaving a waterfall of noodles to flop over his chin.

"You work for me so it's _my_ lab," Starscream corrected him with a vengeful little hiss, then stared at the slimy brown-coated noodles in something like horror. He turned to see them better in the light and they slid to the side in a pool of brown like a mass of worms, producing an unappetizing squishing noise. "What on God's green earth is this?"

"Lomein." The big man looked up with a slight smile, proffering chopsticks. "Try it. You might like it."

"Yes, because I regularly ingest sewage," Starscream sniffed, putting the box aside and shucking his coat off. He tugged his tie free. "Get to work, your lunch break is over."

"Slave driver," Skyfire sighed without ire. It was hard to be angry, knowing his old lab partner was just anxious to get back to work but didn't know how to say so in a… nice way.

Even after actually _knowing_ him just a month, the chemist had learned to read Starscream's indirect, domineering methods of getting what he wanted, when he wanted, without actually _saying_ anything of the sort. Starscream performed back-flips to keep from asking anyone for anything. The younger man's guardedness—his inability to let anyone have a single advantage over him, even if it was just the knowledge that he _liked science_ and _wanted to do it_—made Skyfire feel strange and somewhat tired. It made him feel like an enemy when he was nothing of the sort.

It also made him want to poke Starscream. Just a poke: just something to let him know he was harmless. He doubted Starscream had met many harmless people, which made Skyfire feel yet sorrier for him… even if Skyfire wasn't sure exactly when he'd begun to feel sorry for the other man. Quietly, struck with an idea that was probably equal parts stupid as it was sudden, Skyfire slid his laptop to the side and got to his feet, grabbing the box of cheap Chinese food again.

"You'll get nowhere by flattering me," Starscream was saying dryly, busying himself with his goggles and his gloves. Skyfire walked up behind him, slouching like a tiger through the tall African grass (or an oversized white boy through an equally white laboratory) as he dug around in the take-out box, chopsticks poised like weapons.

"Yeah, of course. Could you get the usuals out and start in on the NMR specs?"

"Fine."

"Don't forget, if the results are scrambled, there's a chance we still got some product. The reaction just didn't proceed all the way."

"Do I scream 'idiot' or do you just enjoy repeating things?"

"Just making sure. And, hey, one more thing. Would you mind opening your mouth?"

"_What_?"

Starscream turned, brow furrowed and mouth open as requested, and then it was all over.

Had he been ready for it, the Seeker would have been almost surprised at Skyfire's stealth. The big chemist did not attempt to muscle him down, but just stuffed a forkful of the greasy noodles into his open mouth. Where he'd gotten the courage—or the ardent idiocy—to do it escaped Starscream, as Skyfire had always been somewhat passive and ridiculously obliging, and the Seeker's pure shock didn't help with the disgusting taste in his mouth. The senior scientist proceeded to sit back and laugh uproariously while Starscream was forced to chew behind his hand, being far too dignified to spit something out no matter how _utterly revolting_ it was.

"Oh my god, your face!" Skyfire hawed, pounding at his knee, then sat back with a content little wheeze. When he caught his breath, he squeaked back and forth in his chair, looking at the Seeker with a lame, almost fond expression. "I'm sorry, Starscream, I really am."

"No, you aren't," Starscream said sourly after he gulped the salty noodles down, wiping his mouth and wondering why he wasn't scratching the other man to pieces. If Thundercracker had done the same to him, he would have gotten punched in the mouth. What the hell was so different about this blond, guileless giant?

"No, I really am," Skyfire said quite seriously, adjusting his glasses. He put his hands out somewhat helplessly. "That MSG might send your systems into shock. You've never had it before."

"What?" Starscream asked tensely. He clutched his datapad to his chest, obviously thinking some of the chemicals might have _actually_ made it into the food, only for Skyfire to burst out laughing again at something Starscream clearly didn't understand.

The big man was absolutely useless for the rest of the day. He had laughed so hard he absolutely _exhausted_ himself and apparently broke his brain. He tossed jokes at Starscream and altogether refused to be serious about their work, which irritated the other man to no end. But all resentful feelings stopped cold and just dropped out of his body when Skyfire got up an hour or two later and patted Starscream on the shoulder and even, after a truly boyish chuckle, tugged his old lab partner against his side for a brief moment.

Starscream should have been uncomfortable. He should have been shoving Skyfire away. He should have been gritting his teeth and squirming in his skin, but he wasn't.

Starscream went unusually quiet, his body numbed by the imprint of Skyfire's arm around his shoulders. He only mobilized his voice to provide functional responses or grouchy snap-backs to Skyfire's little jabs. After another half-hour of work, the chemist looked over at him three times in the space of a minute and took a breath that could have been either hopeless or bracing.

"Hey, Starscream?"

Starscream didn't see why Skyfire had to constantly _refer_ to him like that, if just because the sound of his name from the other man's mouth made him prickly and instantly uncomfortable. The Seeker looked over, eyes narrowed, ready to threaten to fire him if he didn't quit _screwing around_. Then, like more and more often on quiet Wednesday afternoons, Skyfire smiled at him with his big, gentle hands poised over a beaker and Starscream lost every nasty thing he was about to say.

"Do you want to come to a speech with me?"

Starscream just stared. And stared. And stared.

Then he agreed so quickly, so curtly ("Yes." "What?" "Yes."), that it made Skyfire laugh somewhat and give a sheepish "uh, okay". The older man seemed surprised that he didn't even have to outline what the speech was about, with as exacting and judgmental as Starscream was… and it was then Starscream realized, with a suitable prickle of dread, that if Skyfire had invited him to a rodeo, he probably would have agreed.

This wasn't good.

* * *

Their dinners were getting louder and faster.

It was only natural that business come up, as central as it was to their lives, but the next Saturday found Starscream arguing with Megatron about a facet of a new policy. He was getting himself wound up despite his best efforts to remain calm, disinterested and, above all, scornful of anything associated with these contracted dinners. He blasted the older man for a good ten minutes, gesturing sharply with his fork. He would have been encouraged by Megatron's neutral, open face and his only-occasional counterpoints, but the Seeker was also too far gone to care about his audience when he'd been against such a move from the beginning and had never gotten a chance to send all of his misgivings sprawling.

"You have put a hole in my logic," Megatron laughed to himself after a moment when Starscream paused to draw breath and snap a bit of pasta off his fork.

"And that's only the beginning! Aside from causing the one contact that can supply us with production-quality radium--"

"Without going through Natco."

"--yes, _without_ going through Natco--to flounder as a direct cause of our actions, would that even _slightly_ justify the loss _or_ the product?"

"You win."

"No, it does _not_," Starscream pushed, raising his wine-glass almost threateningly. "And that's because—what?"

Starscream exited the debate haze at lightning speed, smacked down from his high. Those two words stuck in between his eyes, refusing to be real. He was left staring blankly at the older man seated across from him, who met his eyes with a calm, impressed expression while putting down his napkin.

"I admit defeat. I can no longer hold my position," Megatron ceded, hand out. He said no more.

"Of course you can't," Starscream said, three seconds too late—and even then it lacked all conviction. In fact, it was downright flabbergasted. His hand was frozen on his wineglass; as if to make up for Starscream's lack of movement, Megatron lifted his own and took a drink.

"I had never thought about the recoil of such a move. Put what you just said in writing and I will have it filed as soon as I am able."

He smiled at his Second and quietly went back to his steak, leaving Starscream strangely, inexplicably hot in the face.

At the end of the night, Megatron walked him to his door again. That same uncomfortable heat had settled into his Second's bones so that, by the time they reached his closed door, Starscream didn't reach for the handle. The jet last week, the open compliment and acceptance of one of his strategies this week… somehow it added up to one little privilege. After all, it wasn't like it had never happened before.

That night, simply because he did not move away, Megatron kissed him.

It was simple, accompanied by a warm hand sliding against the small of his back. Simple was all it took: the idiotic man could turn him on with one touch, make him light up like a Christmas tree. The President kissed him firmly, sending sparks straight to his gut. The ghost imprint of it stayed on the younger man's lips and, before he knew it, there was a second, softer press against his parted mouth.

No matter how Starscream's skin thrilled with want and anxiety alike, the sheer gall of the old fool—taking two when only offered the _suggestion_ of one!—woke him up. Starscream drew back and forced himself to take a cleansing breath of air, squinting and gritting his teeth when he inhaled a bowlful of the other man's spicy, _close_ cologne.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" he grit out against Megatron's lips, hands balled into fists. His President drew away, hand across his back the last thing to leave his stiff body.

"Always," he answered pleasantly, and was gone with another tip of his hat.

Blood on fire, mind cauterized, Starsream stormed inside and ripped all the pillows off his bed (he _told_ the maid he didn't want it made up like a goddamned cake anymore) and called someone he knew who was exceptionally good at fucking people into the floor.


	43. Informant

A/N: Third on the poll list: Trine interactions! … Minus the screechy third wheel. But he's mentioned enough that it matters anyways.

To all those who voted in le poll, thank you! There was a (comparatively) overwhelming result for Shockwave and Soundwave stuff, which was exactly what I expected… annnnnd exactly what I didn't know how to handle. SWEET. You guys seriously have to help me out with those two, because they are possibly the only two characters that I honestly don't understand.

**If you have a SoW/ShW idea** (that is barely-bromantic or otherwise awkward but by no means romantic pleeeeease), note me or email me. Otherwise, it may be 2030 when my stupid school-rattled brain comes up with something.

_Characters: Skywarp, Megatron, Thundercracker, Starscream-centric_

_Pairings: implied Megatron/Starscream, Thundercracker/Skywarp triplet-bonding._

_Warnings: Flashback, happens between Start and Step Two. Mentions of physical abuse and a little more insight as to the trine's (er triplets') young development and why Starscream is practically never seen with them._

* * *

Informant

* * *

More often than not, Skywarp was the last one in his shared office when the day ended.

Despite his surname and connections, his meek, desperate-to-please nature marked him as an instant victim of the piranha pool of commerce: everyone from upper officers to interns took advantage of him, some even without knowing it. The slouching Seeker seemed to position himself firmly underneath their feet with no end of squirming and fidgeting and cringing, so how were they to blame if they simply stepped down during the course of their day? What was more, he never made a sound when they did.

Skywarp had accepted his unlisted jobs of paper-running and clean-up without any notable protest, possibly because it kept him out of the arenas Megatron was more likely to go. Needless to say, the young coward feared the President intensely, even if the warlord had never laid a hand on him and gave him a massive paycheck he didn't entirely know what to do with. The youngest Seeker triplet preferred to be constantly in-transit and could be seen in the elevators for about an hour of every day, holding a stack of folders tightly and staring at the floor to avoid the eyes of those entering. That Friday night, he was closing up shop as usual, attending to the various packets thrown on his desk through the day. The 'If you happen to be sending a load to the fifth floor later' kind of stuff.

Head low in his dark, empty office, the thin young man carded through the colored papers in the buttery light of his desk-lamp, sliding them in the necessary inboxes. Then someone cleared his throat in the dead silence, making the Seeker jump and turn around.

A huge, grey-suited man filled the doorway. Skywarp skittered backwards so suddenly he sent a pile of papers sloughing to the floor, a panicked squeak escaping him. He went stiff against his desk like a deer caught in the headlights, shoulders up to his ears and hands hooked around the edge of it.

Suddenly, breath was hard to come by.

"Oh god. Oh g—Megatron. Hello."

Megatron kept his gaze and walked in slowly, as if to give Skywarp time to fully latch onto the desk and steady himself for the coming encounter. He stopped a healthy distance away and clasped his hands behind his back, expression only mildly interested. The light from the hallway made him into a grey-eyed statue, the unalleviated silence increasing his threat tenfold.

Skywarp quivered against his desk, waiting. Megatron smiled.

"What can you tell me about your brother?"

"Which one?" Skywarp asked after a moment, question little more than a gasp. He shook his head, startled by the gaping simplicity of the request. "I've… got a few…"

"Starscream," Megatron clarified needlessly, the slow, patient rumble of his voice driving Skywarp's bones to give one colossal rattle. The young man swallowed several times, clenching his eyes shut and trying to _think_. Starscream. What was there to tell about Starscream?

"He's, uh, he's a p-perfectionist, he doesn't… like to be interrupted, he pinches really hard—_really_ hard—"

"No. Something basic," the older man interrupted him, brow furrowed. His hard eyes were fixed elsewhere, beyond the cringing man in front of him: the genetic double of Starscream, yet inestimably different. He was the easily-bent key to digging underneath Starscream's job and into the young man himself. "Something significant that he would keep from others. A hobby. A fixation."

"He's gay," Skywarp offered reedily, blurting out the one thing that stuck in his mind as deviant.

"Really."

The deeply amused, almost incredulous look Megatron leveled at him made him retreat into his lavendar suit-jacket, face flushing.

"Okay. Okay." Skywarp struggled to think back on something intrinsically _Starscream_ that wasn't his penchant for designer clothes or his cruel, self-important nature. He dug his nails into his wrist to keep his mind on-track and not brain-stem-screaming about the man in front of him. He grit his teeth. Grit them again. "He likes, uh, planes."

"Planes," Megatron repeated curiously, causing the younger Seeker to duck his head and flatten his hair over his downcast eyes.

"Yeah. Jets. Planes and… jets and things."

"And why is that?"

The tone in the tyrant's voice made Warp feel like he was selling Starscream out. It was almost like he endangering him somehow, because the slithery glee, the dawning victory, in the other man's voice could have no safe end. But he could not deny Megatron. It was simply impossible: authority was enough to frighten him, but combined with the older man's huge hands and the glint of his teeth, there was no option but submission.

"He wants… wanted to be a… plane-flyer. Pilot. Jet-pilot," Skywarp clarified endlessly, desperate to get away from the pounding of his own heart. "When he was little, he wanted to. Like in the military."

For a moment, all was silent in the empty office. Skywarp could feel the 58 floors of silence pressing up and down on him simultaneously: they could have very well been the last two people in the darkened building, and anything could still happen. No one would know. Skywarp dared to look up in time to catch a silky, pleased smile on the older man's face, and just like that, it was done.

"Thank you, Skywarp," the President said, turning with his hands still clasped. "I don't need to say this conversation is private."

Megatron exited with a hiss of silk trousers, but Skywarp didn't dare to breathe until he heard the boom of the staircase door down the hall. That sound released his last brittle barrier: he slumped spinelessly against his desk and caught his breath, counting his pulse in the dark room. He stared uncomprehendingly at the papers scattered around his boots, then sighed deeply.

"He's not going to hurt you."

Skywarp jumped again then winced, turning towards the steady click-click of boots behind him. He'd almost forgotten.

"You don't know that," Skywarp whispered plaintively, lacing his fingers over his mouth as Thundercracker came out from behind the partition of their shared office, a folder in one hand. His older triplet gave him a hard look. Skywarp swallowed. "He hits Starscream."

"He hits Starscream for the same reason I do. The bastard deserves it every time," Thundercracker said flatly, tossing his daily work in the proper inbox.

In every sense, the two deserved each other. Starscream pulled a stupid stunt and Megatron throttled him but ultimately let him go. Both made mistakes and saw fit to punish the other for it. The occasional smack was more of a fear tactic anyways: Starscream had come to worse at the hands of his brother and over far stupider things. Megatron made sure never to bruise above the collar, either. Thundercracker was never so kind and made a point of trying to give his brother black eyes when he could, if just to screw with his vanity.

Exhausted after a long day, Thundercracker's expression went from irked to downright exasperated when he turned to look at his brother and the lumpy, cockeyed length of silk beneath his chin masquerading as a tie.

"Your tie looks like someone used it for a handkerchief, do you ever look in a mirror? Get over here."

Skywarp came demurely, well-used to his brother's irritated rebukes and the following fix-ups. He rocked nervously back and forth on his toes as his older (by three seconds) brother yanked his tie free and straightened it, scowling and rapping him on the shoulder to make him stop that infernal fidgeting. He was always a jittering mess after Megatron came within three feet of him; Thundercracker knew he had to tone it down or he would shake himself to pieces within the year, but telling his brother to get a spine never really worked.

"They haven't been fought in weeks," Skywarp said in a hushed voice over the hiss of the silk, as if everyone else hadn't noticed the complete lack of screaming matches between their President and his Second, or cherished the chance to get a little work done. Thundercracker scowled and made an affirmative noise.

"Why do you think he wants to know about Star's plane-thing?" Skywarp pressed, eyes wide behind his uncut hair.

"I'll leave them to it," Thundercracker snorted, earning himself a wary look from Warp.

"You aren't worried?"

"The amount of trouble he can get into on his own is the only thing worth worrying over, and then there's no point in it," he said, finishing the tie and yanking it tight.

It wasn't as if Thundercracker didn't care about his brother. He did. But he also knew how much of a self-serving, short-sighted idiot he could be and failed to feel any vestige of pity for him because he didn't come to anyone else with his problems—or even admit that he had them. It would be a whole new ballgame if their darling Star actually involved them in his life.

Starscream's separation from them went way back. Mother started it, so it became nothing but habit, but Starscream still thought he was the only person who knew what was best for him and didn't honor his closest brothers with as much as a glance. They had stopped warning him—or, indeed, trying to really talk with him--months ago. When he came back down to Earth and was willing to admit his stupidity, then Thundercracker, at least, would start giving a damn again. Otherwise it was just an exercise in futility and migraines.

"If you get trampled in this place, it's because you let it happen," he said shortly, ignoring—or trying to ignore—Skywarp's stricken look and the following slump of his brother's shoulders. He gestured at the door. "Now come on. I'm driving to Mother's for dinner and you're stuck on the bus if you don't wrap it up."

"Not the bus," Skywarp gasped quickly, as if remembering that he hadn't refilled his hand-sanitizer bottle _and_ there was a new string of spring flu out. Thundercracker heard various rustling behind him and assumed his brother to be cleaning up, but when the room went silent, he looked back. Skywarp was standing in front of his desk, frozen, with an unnervingly glassy look in his eyes as he fidgeted at the papers in his hands. Thundercracker rolled his eyes so hard it probably made the day a minute shorter, fighting the urge to bite through his tongue.

"_Warp_."

"TC?" Skywarp asked in a faint voice, catching his brother's attention more than any shout. "What if he did hit me?"

Floored, Thundercracker stared at his little brother for a moment, then shook his head, walking over and firmly taking the papers from him and tossing them on the desk.

"Then I'd clock him twice as hard. Get your ass moving," he said, taking Skywarp by the arm and pushing him one step ahead. It was a rote brusqueness that somehow evened out when combined with the quick arm around his brother's shoulder, which lasted all the way to the office door.

"I swear to god you're going to learn to drive one of these days."


	44. Overload

A/N: I swear I'm going to reveal the reason for Megatron's god-like virility/sex-drive sometime soon. I swear I don't think that normal 54-year-old-men really chase ass like this, or even have the _energy_ to chase ass like this. THERE'S A REASON, AND ITS CANONICAL. Well… ehhhhh. Blame Sumdac :]

Urrrr. I have a passion for Latin dance, if you hadn't guessed. Look up some bachata on Youtube if you want a general feel for what it looks like (xtreme te extrano is super good, minus the super-sexy-grindy stuff on La Alemana's part), because it truly is an amazing 'bittersweet' dance and can turn into vertical sex SO quickly. Mmm.

For all of you wondering who the heck Starscream calls for 'help', proceed to AFFnet for a truly weird chapter~

_Characters: Megatron, Starscream, Skyfire_

_Pairings: MegatronxStarscream, StarscreamxSkyfire_

_Warnings: Hold your breath and trust me on this chapter. I know some of this may seem ridiculous, and I hope it doesn't, but it really is quite important to Odd Megatron's character. Angry-brute-gladiator G1 persona plus cultured-as-hell TFA persona requires something pretty darn noteworthy in-between those two points for them to connect at all, and bitter, angry brutes aren't all that hot at seducing people, self-centered as they are._

_Oh, I would so marry him, regardless of his evilness. He's so flipping sneaky._

* * *

Overload

* * *

It was an unspeakably stupid idea to mix heat and inattentiveness, especially in an environment teeming with accelerants.

Unfortunately, stupid was just what Starscream was that day: stupid, or vapid, or simply distracted to the point of vacancy. His brain felt swollen, the line between his eyes and his mind severed. It was all he could do not to expose his wandering thoughts to Skyfire, particularly because the other man, humming along to his silly classic rock music, was half the cause. Gathering all his wits and cunning, Starscream managed to assemble a complex deposition contraption and fill the ice-finger to the top, setting it on a hot-plate. Knowing only that heat came next, he turned the hot-plate on without thinking or checking, not even _looking_ at the setting.

He turned to prepare a sample on the opposite counter, relying on a month of instinct to move his gloved hands. The Seeker heard a small hissing noise right as Skyfire said his name, then Skyfire _shouted_ his name and Starscream was suddenly slammed to the side, counter cracking against his hip.

A small explosion rocked the lab. There was a pop so loud the very sound ricocheted off Starscream's teeth and glass went everywhere. The two men dropped to the floor and Starscream grunted as his back hit the counter, crushed there by Skyfire. Anger immediately flared underneath his skin even as glass tinkled to all sides of them, a foul smell soaking everywhere. Stascream's ears rang and rang and rang.

It took a full second of sitting and panting high and fast before the Seeker realized where he was: on the floor, Skyfire on top of him, with scorched glass all around them as a result of something stupid he had done.

"I didn't do that!" he blurted shrilly. Rage surfaced quickly as it always did, as his preferred defense mechanism. He had learned long ago: shout loud enough, angrily enough, and no one doubted you… or they realized whatever they wanted to pin you for wasn't important enough to face your anger.

Starscream only realized he was genuinely shaking, genuinely _shaken_, when Skyfire gripped his shoulder and straightened himself, pupils reduced to pinpricks in his wide, hyper-blue eyes.

"You… probably didn't. Those heating plates are unpredictable," he gasped, face pale as the tiles. He breathed heavily into his old lab partner's neck for a moment, big fingers entrenched in Starscream's shoulder hard enough to bruise, then whispered, "I'm sorry. I think I'm in shock."

Stunned by the soft response and the lack of _accusation_, Starscream's voice got stuck in his throat just as he was stuck underneath Skyfire. He just froze and waited, wide-eyed expression a thousand miles away. His heart pounded even though the adrenaline was long-gone. After a span both far too long and far too short, Skyfire looked down and then extricated himself from Starscream's skinny, crunched body, helping the other man to his feet.

Wincing at the pinched sensation from both his hip and his back, Starscream only clamped down harder on Skyfire's hand when he got up, not wanting that big body any further from him than it had to be. Skyfire didn't shake him off, so they held hands, unable to do more than stand and stare. When Starscream looked up from the smoking ruins of the deposition vial to the left of them, his expression abruptly morphed from perturbed to surprised.

"Your neck," Starscream said in the way someone would say 'thank you', but the sight of bright red blood dribbling down Skyfire's thick neck made the already foreign idea of thanks absolutely unimportant. Skyfire's blue eyes widened further and he reached back, patting hesitantly at the wrong part of his neck. Bringing his hand back around, he stared at the crimson smear on his green gloves.

"Well," he said intelligently, frowning as though the color didn't quite make sense.

Starscream came-to for the first time that day and immediately fetched the first aid kit. By the time he found it, Skyfire was already trying dumbly to pick up the glass shards from the floor. Starscream smacked him away from the shrapnel and hauled him to his feet, ordering him to sit down as he bustled with alcohol and gauze, muttering about stupidity.

His, Skfire's, it didn't make any difference. The lab was just full of _stupid_ that day.

Skyfire didn't seem to hear any of it, at last content to sit on a stool and be tended. There were three sizeable glass slivers in his neck, the very sight of which made Starscream intensely queasy. He was reminded, of course, of the last time he'd seen pink flesh with blood-covered glass sticking out of it and yet Skyfire was just _sitting_ there. His skin really was just that thick, although Starscream received an encouraging sign of _consciousness_ when he plucked out the last of the meaty shards and the big man hissed, drawing back.

"That set-up was… really expensive," Skyfire whispered when he could speak again, eyes still strangely glazed. The hunch of his linebacker shoulders spelled defeat, which was perhaps an excuse as to why Starscream's hand was on his back in the next moment, steadying the big man.

"I'll take care of it," Starscream soothed. Then he bit his tongue as he reached for the forceps. _Soothed_? Maybe that was an overstatement… or maybe he'd just never heard own his voice both low and barely-gentle before and didn't know what to call it. Skyfire smiled up at him; it was comically distorted into a clumsy leer when Starscream wiped the blood away from the gashes.

The wounds made sense in a practical speeding-glass-plus-flesh sort of way until the Seeker actually thought about what had _caused_ them to be on Skyfire's neck instead of his own face, and then his hand hesitated above the bloody mess.

Skyfire had thrown himself in front of him. Possibly he would have thrown himself in front of a leper or a bank robber, but… the fact Starscream's fingers were red and slippery with his blood somehow made the event personal. Worthy of a pounding heart, really, which he firmly told to shut up and calm down, assuring his screeching Id that it was only the sight of the blood that was shaking him down to his bones.

Skyfire had _protected_ him. Skyfire had purposefully put himself in front of an explosion he knew would be dangerous. That sacrifice made it all the more awful when Starscream took a sopping cotton ball of alcohol and pushed it across the open wounds and Skyfire jerked away and grunted in pain, eyes clenched. Starscream kept dabbing until the skin was clean and his heart had returned to an even rhythm.

"You really are just a big insufferable goody-two-shoes," Starscream muttered sourly to himself, scowl settling in to stay.

"It's about time you returned the favor of cleaning up my blood," Skyfire responded, smiling in a lame, slightly pained, absentminded, positively _sweet_ way that made Starscream's gut twist under the sudden and utterly alien rush of awkwardness. It made him want to run out and stay in the same moment. Possibly faint, too, if just because of how _close_ the big chemist was.

Really, there was no end of things to marvel at. Skyfire was completely comfortable under his hands, which were shaking slightly. He even had his eyes closed, like it had never occurred to him how sharp the other man's nails were or how much of a generally bad person he was. Starscream would never think of exposing his neck to anyone. He paused slightly, awakening only when Skyfire looked up at him curiously and cleared his throat a little.

The red of his watering eyes made them look that much bluer. Sky-blue, actually.

"It is clean?"

"Don't rush me," he snapped, patting at the clean cuts more jerkily than he should have. "I'm inexperienced in cleaning up after idiots."

"I bet you're inexperienced in all bodily fluids," the chemist chortled, then choked abruptly, withdrawing slightly into his always big and suddenly oafish body. He drummed his fingers on the counter, neck reddening. "Except for—oh. Well. Uh. _Well_."

"Don't talk anymore. You might hurt yourself," Starscream said dryly, not looking up.

It took a moment before Skyfire looked convinced that Starscream wouldn't do the honors himself. It actually surprised the Seeker how he didn't rile at the comment, if only because he knew that it was not intentional. … But since when had he been making distinctions between intentional and unintentional insults? An insult was an insult!

Yes, an insult. Which meant that whatever sort of credit Skyfire had earned with his little rescue stunt was now null. They were back to level ground, debt-free, which should have made Starscream feel so much more comfortable than it did.

Once puffy white bandages lay strapped across his neck, Skyfire rose with a wan smile of thanks… then he immediately bent to pick up the glass shards, which almost sent him tumbling to the floor again from simple blood-loss and lingering shock. Starscream gave one ear-splitting squawk and everything afterwards was chastisements and two-man chaos.

"Remember to put your gloves back on when you start again," Skyfire reminded him after a brief but violent to-do with a screechy Starscream and a well-wielded broom. He snapped his own up his thick hamhock wrists, watching the other man sweep up the glass mess with a paint-peeling scowl. "Toluene. Toxic."

"I'm not an idiot," Starscream growled over the dust-pan. _Nor am I a maid_, he thought scathingly, but when he rose, he found himself staring at Skyfire's broad back and the gentle, conscientious movements of his hands over beakers and bottles. He stared even longer at the chunky remnants of the exploded vial in the glass-waste deposit before putting up the broom, the last vestiges of his mistake, and returning to work.

If he wasn't an idiot, he had yet to prove it.

* * *

All things considered, Starscream couldn't have asked for a better Saturday.

His joy concerned what _didn't_ happen moreso than what did. It just so happened that he and his dear President were due at a particularly dull business dinner at the precise time of their contracted Saturday outing. The Seeker heir was nothing but a place-holder—every executive had brought his or her vice and all were remaining dutifully quiet, even chewing without a sound--which left him free to enjoy the spectacle of Megatron practically biting his silverware in half for three hours in a row.

It was amusing to see his oh-so collected employer genuinely impatient, too ready to get out of playing nice with all of them. He had no intention of biting any lures, which found him tapping his foot and forcing smiles. His foul mood was only exacerbated each time Starscream had the gall to interrupt the flow of conversation or ask the warlord, with a coy side-glance, to pass the salt. Halfway through, the older man took to ignoring him, presumably to block out the thoughts of what he was missing out on.

Part of the Seeker simply didn't want the dinner to end: regardless of whether he was just a spectator, to see Megatron actively denied his desires minute by minute was altogether too delicious. Good enough, even, to make up for the annoyance of being forced out into public with the old fool in the first place? Perhaps. To his immense disappointment, the dinner ended at ten-thirty, landing both men in the plush washroom of the restaurant.

For a moment, there was silence save for the rush of the faucets. Megatron was still seething in his shoes. Starscream could feel the older man's eyes on his back as he wet his face and dried himself languidly with a warm towel. He tossed it to the side when finished, ignoring the other man's arrested stare in the mirror.

"You are ready."

_Ah, there it was_, he thought, unable to help but smirk into his hands.

"To sleep, yes," Starscream said pointedly. He timed the blank silence behind him and turned round, fully prepared with an arrogant look and his hand on his hip. "I fail to see how this dinner doesn't meet your quota."

"That was a business function," Megatron stated sharply, brow furrowed.

"Yes," Starscream said, nonplussed. They had still eaten dinner at the same table. It was still Saturday. Megatron frowned at him, generous mouth thinning.

"Then tomorrow," he said, voice dangerously low.

"No. You wouldn't allow me to reschedule my lab time when I asked last week," Starscream preened, feeling horribly superior at the deeply disgruntled look he received. He turned his nose up and loosened his tie. "You contracted me for two and a half hours on any given Saturday. Even if the guidelines emphasize privacy, you've still lost your opportunity."

He almost _heard_ the slapping noise that one produced and nearly wiggled in glee besides that. Not only was he free for another week, he had beaten Megatron at his own game _and_ with his own weapon. Starscream half-expected some sort of ugly outburst, or at least a growl and an attempt to reestablish dominance. _I'm your President and my word is law_ and all that rubbish. Nothing of the sort occurred.

After a moment of silence, a hand slid under his elbow, which made Starscream whirl around and almost bare his teeth.

"But it is not yet Sunday," Megatron reminded him with his famous fox-smile, suddenly close enough to kiss. Starscream jerked away, neck instantly red.

"What on earth are you talking about? Everything is closed!" he exclaimed. He had no wish to know what the older man had in mind, especially with as confident as Megatron looked as he parted from his Second and straightened his jacket.

"For some, the evening is just beginning."

"You have a museum in mind, _sir_?" he asked sharply, tensing. It was his little way of jabbing the older man: reminding him of their contract, if nothing else, and the nonconsensual nature of the whole affair. Too often, Megatron acted like his Second kept coming back of his own accord.

As if Starscream would return time and again to such an obvious trap, even if he failed to run as he saw it closing around him. Behind him, the lascivious glint in the older man's eye could have lit a bonfire. Starscream felt the sudden need to wash his face again.

"Be out front in five minutes."

He could play all the games he liked, but the trouble with calling the old fool 'sir' meant Starscream also had no choice but to obey.

* * *

The exhausted, irritated, _furious_ young man despaired when he got into the car, but that was nothing to the full rush of suicidal-strength shame that hit him when they actually arrived at their destination.

Twenty minutes later, they were in a club. Starscream was not hallucinating, though he dearly wished he were. It looked like an old _disco_, except for the riotous, twangy latin music blaring out of the speakers; his _boss_, who was old enough to be his father, was garnering not a few stares with his classy suit. It was impossible and part of Starscream's mind simply refused to believe it was real, but rather some kind of ghastly nightmare provoked by that night's egg salad.

They observed the dancers for a while (or rather, one watched and the other stared angrily at the cracking ceiling, bemoaning how he could allow himself to be tricked like this) before Megatron offered his hand with a knowing smile. Starscream's expression went from incensed to aghast.

"Absolutely not," he shouted over the music. He crossed his arms and turned away, uncaring if the older man actually heard any more. "This is beyond ridiculous. My very presence here embarrasses me enough, you will not humiliate me in public!"

"You either fulfill your quota today or tomorrow," the warlord responded in the same controlled shout, shucking his expensive jacket and flipping it over the back of a chair. "Or I will inexplicably have an emergency this Wednesday at noon."

Starscream was still on-call for high-priority meetings and emergencies. Megatron's Second cursed into his shirt-sleeve as the depressing weight of inevitable capitulation put a vice on his temples, joining the relentless hammer of the latin beat. What was the rule? What the President wanted, the President got. The 'sir' rule still applied.

The Seeker heir knew he was doomed when he agreed to this deal initially, he just never imagined the old idiot would go this _far_ to either torture him or enjoy himself. Why were they even _there_? How did this fit in with Megatron's devious over-arcing plan: what the hell were they going to do with this awful music?

"People will stare!" he hissed at last, hunching up and hiding inside his suit jacket as a last resort. Megatron rolled up his shirtsleeves, bunching them high on his muscled, vein-cracked forearms.

"Are you concerned with our matching tie-pins or our gender?"

It was a good question. It was a _very_ good question. Most of the couples were obviously made up of man and a woman; there was the uncomfortable fact that the Seeker would be required to fill one side of the couple equation and it definitely wouldn't be the male side. However, his discomfort had so much more to do with the base _identity_ of the silver-haired man staring at him expectantly, who took the opportunity to pull him out of his chair and within arms reach and make all the assumptions he pleased.

"What kind of dances do you know?"

_Ones that would make you faint_, Starscream thought nastily before sighing and glowering up at the old fool. Fifty minutes to midnight. He could survive fifty minutes.

He twitched when the music went into an utterly awful horn solo, the last of his hope evacuating his body in an unheard woosh.

"Only lowly classics, oh honorable President."

His mother had ensured that all of her children were equipped with the basics in upper-echelon tomfoolery. Waltz, foxtrot, and a small amount of swing. By those definitions, Starscream detested _dancing_. What he enjoyed—or what at least fed his brainstem for a while—was the messy clash of bodies that happened at the best clubs in Detroit. He occasionally went clubbing and picked up men. It was a lot easier to lead an attractive man out of an orgy than a charity dinner, that much was fact, and less people seemed to know his face—or his mother--in the former.

"I do not know how to waltz, neither do I see any point in it," the older man mused, then seemed to size Starscream up, grey eyes suddenly calculating. Starscream gave into his annoyance if just to escape the prickle of apprehension that the sight of a pleased Megatron always gave him. Megatron took up his hands and clasped them firmly in his own. "You will learn something new."

"Oh rapture," Starscream grimaced, trying not to pull away or dig his heels in as he was led out to the fringes of the dance-floor.

He had seen the older man dance before (and rather skillfully) at charity functions and the gala, so it wasn't so surprising to think that Megatron had lived such a god-awful amount of time that he had picked up some other routines. To begin the lesson, Megatron deferred to him for an obnoxiously long time, hands a healthy five inches away from his hips. Starscream finally snorted and made a 'fine, but just to make you stop acting like an idiot' gesture. He was unable to help but stiffen up when the older man took him by the waist and led him through a 4-4 beat with a strange hip-twitch on every four.

The buck of his hips and the corresponding hiccup of his foot was what gave him the most trouble. He was unused to the rhythm of it, the intertwining of smooths and quicks. His dancing experience was an exercise in stark contrasts: the foxtrot was monotonous and dry, the product of math and good breeding; grinding was impulsive and varied, the product of a quick pulse and hormones. When he'd finally done it four times without messing up, he looked up, trying to hide how stymied he was with a healthy dose of seething impatience.

"_Well_?"

"Bachata," Megatron supplied, once again with that confounding accent. He clasped their hands tightly enough that Starscream could feel his calluses, looking very pleased that his Second hadn't run out screaming yet. "It is not Brazilian, but I was taught by a Brazilian man who did nothing but dance."

Starscream was not given enough time to make the connection that Brazil's native language was Portuguese, as the older man immediately grabbed his hands and made him move. There was one aspect of the dance the Seeker heir appreciated: it did not involve Megatron's hands on his hips, but both of their hands clasped together above the waistline. A dance of equals—or, at least more equal than most. The older man led terribly well, if just because his huge hands engulfed Starscream's: his movements were iron, sending a direct line into his Second's brain as to which direction he should turn and at what angle, and also stopped him if he went too far.

"He was a smaller man, generally unattractive," Megatron continued, letting the Seeker get a grip on the new skill. Side to side, and again; a quickly corrected stumble when switching to the front-to-back variant. Starscream grit his teeth, unused to failing at much of anything and trying not to count minutes—or pray for a better song. At least one that didn't involve maracas and the howl of a mating walrus.

"I was intensely critical of dancing and twice-so of a man who could do nothing but. He infuriated me. After some negotiation, he gave me a demonstration. I was deeply surprised to find myself in his bed directly after, but the transformation to his person was something amazing."

"He _seduced_ you?" Starscream demanded after he had mentally sorted through the older man's blasé tone, made twice as difficult with the amount of attention he was putting on his feet. He was utterly incapable of seeing Megatron bamboozled into anything, even as an imagined younger man. No matter the color of his hair, the strict goatee and hard eyes would remain and no limp-wristed dancer would trick that man.

"Dancing—movement and the control of it--is a powerful tool," Megatron said above him with a small, humble smile. "Dancing and combat are close cousins."

Restraint is often as powerful as brute strength. Control is paramount.

As many as thirty-five years ago, dancing was the man's first step of taking hatred—punches, strikes, kicks, frenzied movement--and controlling it. He learned, slowly and so painfully, to control himself and his urges, to dress brutality in silk and never strike where a simple touch of the hand would do. It was the first step to his façade, led by the self-concerned but overall skillful hands of his teacher. Of course, the issue with facades was one faced by undercover agents and liars alike: live one long enough and you either forget yourself or re-forge yourself. Megatron wasn't concerned with which so long as he continued to function properly.

All things considered, he was the last of his worries.

"It came slowly to me but I managed."

He stepped the young man through a turn, letting Starscream stumble over his own boots without comment. Watching the Seeker's self-conscious, dearly-controlled flounderings, his smile widened slightly.

"My instructor's… mastery of movement continued elsewhere, so I found a reason to continue my lessons."

"Why do I need to know this?" Starscream snapped, knowing he'd done it too quickly when Megatron brought him around and looked down at him appraisingly.

"There is no need for jealousy."

When Starscream drew breath to snipe back, it was promptly pushed out of him by Megatron's hand, now pressing them chest-to-chest. The older man's cheek was flush against his temple, voice lower than usual. The hair on Starscream's neck rose to rapturous attention, sending a shiver through his shoulders.

"It was long ago. Or if you are afraid such stories will cause you to see me as a human being, I'm certain your arrogance is up to the task of deflecting any… empathizing urges. I have full faith in you."

Starscream shut his mouth and fell into disquiet, looking to the left. He didn't have long to stew over this painfully unfamiliar side of his employer, nor formulate an escape: almost immediately, the older man spun him in place and then chuckled, eying the Seeker's ever-present purple heels (and their lack of traction) appreciatively. Starscream glared up at him with unencumbered venom.

"_What_?"

"Your… boots," Megatron said, carefully avoiding the 'h' word. "They are perfect."

Cheeks whitening, Starscream instantly dug said heels in and gave the older man a shove. When he consciously locked his arms before a turn, Megatron gave him another appraising look.

"You are trying to lead," he pointed out.

"You seem surprised," Starscream sneered, cringing when the President turned him again and their arms got caught in some sort of awful tangle. Megatron sorted them out with a flick of his wrists. He yanked the Seeker around, expression equal parts stern and impatient.

"Let me lead you," he said. A nigh-crushing squeeze on Starscream's wrists made the younger man swallow any rebuttal he had. "You know nothing of this. To pretend otherwise is idiocy and to attempt to take command of a situation you know nothing of is an even higher degree of arrogance. It is not easy to lead, but it takes an entirely different skill to _be_ led. Follow me."

Starscream had never had much use for history. There was, however, a man in Virginia a very long time ago—perhaps Virginia, but surely in the revolutionary era—that was such a talented orator that _another_ talented speaker orator that "if he could just say 'oh'" like Mr. Whoever, then he could talk anyone into anything. Or something like that.

Details be damned, all he knew was that the President was something like that. Perhaps it was the pure timber of his voice—damn him, where did he learn to _speak_ like that, like everything he said was truth?—but Starscream bit his tongue, only half-heartedly checking his watch. Twenty minutes. He could survive obedience for twenty minutes.

"Arms loose, wrists taut," Megatron ordered, and it was embarrassing how quickly he surrendered.

After that—once he stopped _fighting_ the other man, as uncomfortable as the concept was--moving was easy. What was more, it gave the older man room to move as well, which revealed another side to the dance: turns could be given by the leading party, but often the man took a chance to be turned and also raised his feet with the beat.

As soon as the resistance left his elbows and shoulders but stayed strong in his wrists—the welcoming circuit for all of Megatron's directions—the Seeker slowly began to narrow himself to beat and movement, realizing that _responding_ was his role. He realized there was a certain beat to twitch his heel on and suddenly, with that anchor, every back-and-forth sweep seemed like a wave. The music changed; he couldn't understand the lyrics, which was somehow good, but the beat was sharp and the vocals were syrupy and melancholy. He went where the touch told him to and was turned and looped around and pivoted with skill.

He didn't even notice when the older man turned him and used it to loop his Second's arm around his warm neck. Starscream had the chance to trail his fingers down his employer's broad chest but snatched them back at the last minute, too startled to react when the older man spun him again and brought him back around—only this time, the President's arm was around his back and they were almost dancing within each other's legs, thighs layered like a braid.

The instant, dumb thrill that went up Starscream's starved body told him the hand on his lower back—and his own hand, now on the older man's broad shoulder--was only natural, no matter how dangerous it was. He couldn't help but be impressed with the smoothness of the move and the way the other man kicked around his legs, still keeping his partner firmly on the wave with the hand to his back. The President was not a professional dancer by any means, but his pure talent for leading gave him a presence other men lacked. Any diva with any sense of carnality would have fought to be his partner, if just for the feel of his hands around hers.

Suddenly, Megatron pushed him half-way around; they danced front to back, the President bowed close enough to kiss his neck with his hand across his Second's hip, and Starscream finally, finally made the connection.

This was not dancing as he knew it. This was grinding made into an art. He realized that the President was keeping a healthy distance between them, and that was _why_: otherwise, even _his_ scruples aside, it would have devolved into something worthy of arrest. This dance was inherently sexual but structured in a way—or flexible in a way--Starscream didn't understand. Perhaps finally accepting his surroundings, Starscream looked at the others dancing around him and they were inseparable, rolling into each other with their mouths to each other's cheeks, breathing each other's air. Women were hiked up on their partner's thick thighs, men digging their hands into piles of curls. Half of the couples' eyes were closed, communicating only through jolts of their hips to the heady beat.

What he felt now, it felt good. He suddenly wanted to know how to do this—really _do_ it. He wanted to look and feel amazing and master every step, and have that balance of carnality and high art… but they already had a word for that. Sensual. He couldn't imagine it, somehow. Had never really imagined it before then. Hadn't had a use for it. It wasn't sex, so why did he care?

"I have heard the leading role compared to that of a picture-frame, and the following role to that of the picture inside it."

Megatron's voice came from behind him, as did the firm push of his arm. Startled, Starscream stumbled around, but before he could even react, he was pressed tightly against the warlord's chest, Megatron's cheek once again to his temple. The Seeker's heart gave an almost awful squeeze, which only worsened as the older man's thumb slid slowly across his palm, mouth brushing his ear.

"It is the frame's responsibility to give the picture an environment, stability, and to bring out its beauty. Give it a place on the wall, if you would. Apart, they are nothing but paper and wood. Together, more."

Starscream twitched as the older man moved above him, but it was not enough to stop the President from pressing their foreheads together, mouths inches apart.

When he lifted their clasped hands, the Seeker let go, only to grab his shoulder when Megatron gently combed through the back of his damp hair. The touch nearly made the younger man collapse, it sent something so vital and compelling through his spine. His chest swelled and clenched with the beat. Unheard, Starscream's breath caught wretchedly, silently begging the older man with every fiber of his being not to lift his eyes.

"Let me lead you, Starscream," he murmured against his lips. "I mean only to show you at your best."

The music stopped.

* * *

Two minutes later, a very sweaty and wide-eyed Starscream was out on the corner hysterically attempting to catch a taxi.

Smiling in that unnerving, _successful_ way of his, the older man practically dragged him away from an open door and locked him into his own grey car. The entire way to his apartment, the Seeker clung to the opposite door, utterly silent, and if any of his fears had dulled over the return drive, they sprang up with a vengeance when he and his President reached his door.

Megatron only waited a spare second before stepping forward and taking him around the small of his back, tipping his chin up, mouth warm on his. He took the lead, and just like before, Starscream couldn't help but obey after feeling such flawless guiding power. Held against Megatron's hard body, flooded by the smell of him, part of him craved to be pushed against the wall but the man held him there, pressing slow, shifting kisses to his open mouth until his legs were hollowed and he couldn't think of pulling away.

Megatron was the first to do so, parting to trail his lips along the younger's jaw with an unseen smile. Starscream's breath caught miserably, feeling seared from the mouth up and chilled from the neck down.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Megatron purred in his ear, arm curled around his Second's waist.

Starscream pulled away without a word and shut the door to his apartment, parting from the handle only to reach for his phone with one hand and his belt with the other.


	45. Impact

A/N: I apologize to anyone who dislikes MegatronxStarscream or SkyfirexStarscream, but this arc has about 6 chapters left, constitutes the end of OM, and will only be sprinkled with two or three more random/connected one-shots. You're best-off checking the character-list (a marvelous invention) and not reading if you don't want to. I managed 30-something one-shots without indulging in a character arc, so I'm actually pretty proud of myself.

OM/TFA Megatron is a hard character to write because he's so charismatic, you forget that he's pretty much the evilest thing on two feet. He even had me convinced on several points. Bastard.

Next, the Waves and the kitties! Thanks to everyone who sent me messages and suggestions, heart y'all. Get ready for some adorable semi-crack.

_Characters: Megatron, Starscream, Skyfire_

_Pairings: MegatronxStarscream, StarscreamxSkyfire_

_Warnings: Skyfire will steal your heart (if Scrapper doesn't already have it) and there's a little more of Megs' lurking back-story comin' to getcha. Plus some grahic-ish violence near the end._

* * *

Impact

* * *

The next Friday night, two old lab partners met at the local university near sunset.

Starscream, as a rule, was inflexibly early to everything but Skyfire's eagerness won out: Skyfire caught sight of the Seeker halfway across the parking lot and waved to him in a little-boy way that should have embarrassed the hell out of Starscream. The big man's red bowtie and tweed jacket, similarly, should have made him hide his face or at least provoked a snide comment. Instead, he fell into step beside the chemist and almost smirked.

It was simply Skyfire. Super-nerd was the only term for the man who pushed open the door for him, already yammering excitedly about the schedule for the night. It was… not annoying, at the least, and possibly endearing.

The grand entry hall to the university called Starscream back to Iacon Academy and its white marble foyers, which only made him feel slightly itchy underneath his ridiculously-tailored sports jacket. The high ceiling seemed pushed further away, gold air underneath swollen with the noisy chatter of intellectuals and students who stood studying the garishly crayon-colored posters of planets and stars on the walls.

The speaker was a professor who specialized in extra-planetary exploration and the necessary technological innovations therein. Starscream hadn't bothered to read up on it, which, as he stood in the middle of the excited furor, further bothered him in a way he didn't really have a word for. Since when had he become so lax with his time? He supposed he would find out what the speech was about in the next hour and a half, but that was hardly any consolation. He had work to do. Didn't he always?

Holding a pamphlet and staring upwards with a deep frown, he didn't notice Skyfire step away and only looked up when the other man slipped something into his hand. Starscream took it without thinking, squinting at the rows of blue numbers on the white snippet of paper and then up at Skyfire.

"And this is?"

"Your ticket," Skyfire said, flashing his own. It went into the ridiculous pocket to his ridiculous tweed jacket but that still left one sitting in Starscream's hand, its very existence a mystery.

"You bought my ticket," Starscream said incredulously, flicking it upright as sordid proof.

"Front row," Skyfire promised, missing the point completely. Too swallowed in nerdy-boy joy to notice his 'assistant's discomfiture, the scientist motioned him through the crowd of wool and hounds-tooth with a big Christmas-day grin. Somehow, combined with the smile in his voice, it was almost the same intimacy as grabbing Starscream's hand and leading him forward.

"Come on, or someone will try to take our seats."

Starscream had just enough time to ponder the enigma in his palm before he was forced to hand it in to a yellow-suited escort, denied even a stub as proof of its existence.

Skyfire bought his ticket for him. It was a stupid gesture, considering their respective salaries, and futile. It was either a product of the other man's guilt or his all-too-common verbal flubs, but either way, it provoked a feeling not unlike when Skyfire had shielded him from the exploding vial.

It was more confused than anything—uncomprehending of the basic physics of kindness, or the willing bump of two souls—but a certain _twinge_ was beginning to coalesce in the younger man's nervous system at the sight of square glasses and blond hair. It made itself known with every second interaction, growing haltingly in strength. It was attached to a particularly tender nerve-bundle somewhere along Starscream's spine that pulled on fleshy red parts of him he wasn't aware existed, and so it was all-too-easy to dismiss and ignore as psychosomatic stress-related nonsense. He was, after all, being pulled in thirteen different directions.

Assumed was the fact that Starscream could ignore it perpetually, but he was proved ridiculously wrong after they filed into the lecture hall.

The lights dimmed within a few minutes, chatter weighed into silence by the descent of warm, expectant darkness. The two men sat next to each other, shoulders almost brushing, and were immediately flanked by others. Starscream forgot to twitch away when Skyfire's knee bumped his, but amended it when the chemist leaned over with a quick 'sorry' and turned excitedly towards the podium, big football-player body radiating a complex interest.

The professor stepped up into the shaft of light encasing the podium and began his speech, assisted by a digital display sparkling with planets. Starscream listened, instantly captivated by the idea of exploring unknown planets, but found himself glancing at the chemist beside him as if to check if he was enjoying it as well. As if it was even a question: Skyfire's enjoyment was so pure that it seemed to warm the air between them. He might as well have been bouncing in his seat.

It almost made the Seeker feel like a voyeur, considering the degree to which the other man was immersed in another world; many other worlds, green and pink and blue in the tinted telescope scans. Rich planets beyond Uranus, beyond the long-debunked Pluto. The colors rotated over Skyfire's handsome face and handsomer smile.

There in the dark, unwatched, something overtook Starscream's rigidly structured insides and spread there, sending half of him into quiet chaos. Glances turned into prolonged seconds of staring and a sudden grin (with a quantum physics joke from the professor, Skyfire's palpable glee spiked) made the younger man's stomach twist. Then, halfway through the presentation, Starscream suddenly realized he didn't know where to put his hands.

His elbows were glued to the sides of the small lecture seat, cramping, and Skyfire's arm was so big it took up the entire armrest. He stared at the other man's hand blankly. The Seeker had never before been faced with such a basic conundrum, nor such an inexplicably large one. As he thought, his scarred left hand lifted up, inching forward, and got within three inches of laying itself on Skyfire's warm hand and twining their fingers together.

Starscream snapped out of it when their shirt-cuffs brushed. Feeling and sense came rushing back to him. His heart gave a painful what-are-you-doing thud and the very thought of it—the static between their exposed skin, his tingling fingertips--made him so gunshot afraid that he was on his feet the very next second and sprinting down the aisle.

The foyer was empty, bare even of escorts. His heels clacked unbearably loud against the marble, dulling only slightly on the tile of the bathroom. Starscream halted in front of the sink, gripping the edges with white hands, and breathed in whatever crude illumination the fluorescents offered.

Forcing his head up, Starscream stared at his reflection. It was white-faced and empty of all understanding. What was that? What had just occurred?

Darkness occluded his memory for one gracious second, blurring planets with Skyfire's smiling profile. Then, facts: he had almost put his hand on top of Skyfire's. He had almost laced their fingers together and held on.

Starscream clenched his eyes shut, digging his fingers into his hair. The thought of holding hands with someone made his knees weak, half from disgust and half from disbelief. Not that it was an inherently disgusting thing, but he had never been seized with an urge so nauseatingly saccharine. He was a fully-grown man, no cringing, mooning, _crying_ third-grader.

It was negligible for anyone else, but for Starscream it was almost a betrayal of his sensibilities. It meant weakness, stupidity. Pointless bleeding sentimentality. What was the point in holding hands? Why? _Why_ did he almost do it, and with Skyfire of all people?

Why did he still want to?

He turned on the faucet and slapped himself with a handful of cold water, grimacing into the sharp sensation. He did it again and again, until his collar was wet. The Seeker finally pressed his hands to his face and leaned on the sink, letting his confusion circulate freely. He knew such a slip shouldn't seem so _apocalyptic_, but he was still a stranger in his own skin, doing incomprehensible things and finding no meaning afterwards.

Then he looked backwards and thought about Skyfire--the smiling, guileless, sweet chemist--and feelings that had been simmering in his chest for weeks finally moved into his throat.

There was the time that he fixed the other man's shirt, making sure to cup Skyfire's broad shoulder with his other hand. He took care not to scrape his nails on the chemist's warm neck but Skyfire turned around anyways, expression stymied.

He always looked like he just woke up from an unfathomably deep sleep if pulled from anything scientific. It made him at least twice as attractive, in that confused-puppy way. Starscream had given his partner a small, indulgent smile, flipping his stylus out of his datapad.

"_Your tag was out."_

"_Oh. Uh, thanks." _

There was the time the chemist asked him to look at something, and he had—only, he'd done it while bending over Skyfire's shoulder, chest pressed to his back. Skyfire wore shy cologne and the smell stayed with him for the rest of the day, making him want to close his eyes.

There was the time after the vial exploded, when he grasped Skyfire's hand and wouldn't let go. He remembered the relief he felt when the other man didn't throw him off, which was the only reason he eventually let go at all. The feeling of the big hand clasped around his made him feel secure even in an empty bathroom a week and a half afterwards, startling his body with its strength and coverage.

It was there all along, possibly ever since Skyfire had first let him into the lab. Ever since Skyfire had started being _nice_ to him. He kept finding excuses to touch the other man, even when he himself so despised touch. He already held his hand once and actively tried to do it again. Stared at him all the way through the lecture. Starscream brushed his hand through his wet hair slowly, painfully sorting through the rush of feelings.

Skyfire. He was attracted to Skyfire.

_No_, he thought vehemently, _I'm flirting with him_. There was a difference, one intimately wrapped up in baggy khakis and a goody-two-shoes act. Skyfire simply wasn't his type, and he had to only like his type. It was unspoken law.

And _of course_ he was trying to flirt with Skyfire. He just wanted to have the man worship him.

It was a common enough urge: it had practically steered him through every life-event since puberty. For years, Starscream ensnared men who seemed weak-willed and used them for all they were worth, dropping them when bored. It all stopped after Iacon (namely, the smashed glass beaker and his bloody hand), but he was just unconsciously turning the same familiar strategy on his lab partner. He wanted to own the harmless chemist and be able to pull his strings with a minimal amount of effort.

It would have made perfect sense… if the thought of Skyfire helplessly, wretchedly adoring him with every bone in his body didn't simultaneously warm him in a frantic way and repulse him deeply.

The unfamiliar crash of emotions left Starscream staring blindly into his reflection again, trying to find himself in the paleness there. The thought of Skyfire being helpless in any way made him almost choke, but the thought of having the chemist reach for _his_ hand made him choke in a different way. Which was which and what was either?

Starscream had always known, as a rule, what he wanted from people. He assessed them and applied a fitting strategy; his desires dictated every nuance of his interaction with them. Treat people with regards to their usefulness, mother said, and it simplified his world nicely. Here, that met a wall. All he knew was that he didn't want Skyfire as a slave. But that left him with the question, what _did_ he want from Skyfire?

It was a mark of his upbringing, the Seeker heir thought with a bitter smirk, that he was so startled, so vitally _disarmed_, by a crush. He simply didn't know how to deal with someone he couldn't extort or simply fuck. The biggest mystery was why he was compelled, as though by threat of death or fire, to stay by Skyfire anyways.

What, after all, was there to gain?

* * *

"You okay? When you ducked out halfway through, you looked like you were going to be sick."

_Apt observation_, Starscream thought acidly. He still felt mildly nauseated. He had been chased out of the bathroom only by the returning tide of thoughtful murmurs and footsteps, which signaled the end of the lecture. He was about to dismiss any need for concern, but Skyfire actually reached out and put a big hand across his shoulders.

The soft, solid touch was enough to make Starscream jerk away without thinking—not because he didn't want it but because he realized he _wanted_ it.

"Don't," he grit out, neck suddenly hot. "Touch me."

"But you're okay," Skyfire insisted unsurely, eyes still pinned on him in the most infuriating manner. The brittle businessman would have snapped at anyone else, but Starscream just forced himself to exhale and waved his hand.

"Yes. Just… nauseated."

"I have some antacids in my wallet."

"It's a wonder I don't take you everywhere," the Seeker sighed hopelessly, but when Skyfire handed him his abandoned coat and started summarizing the second half of the lecture for him, forgetting details and then rediscovering them with a burst of excitement, Starscream truly began to wonder why he didn't.

How the hell had he not noticed that something strange was happening? Once acknowledged, the unspeakable _Skyfire_ twinge traveled up his spine and ate at every part of him, given leave to spread like a disease. If this is what butterflies felt like, he would rather be hung-over every waking moment. The soup of his insides felt awful when his dissolved confidence hit it; it boiled sullenly, making him feel uncomfortably warm and delicately out of control just walking beside the other man and hearing him talk.

Half of him screamed to get away from the source of the discomfort immediately. The other half vehemently disagreed, greedy for more of the other man's warmth, and proved to be both the more idiotic and louder of the two.

"You should come to dinner with me."

Skyfire let the university door swing shut behind him, expression almost shocked. Starscream fought to remain stock-still and utterly superior and, most of all, unconcerned. This was a casual invitation between colleagues. He'd done it a thousand times before. It meant nothing. Skyfire scratched at his neck.

"Tonight?"

And after. Starscream desperately didn't want to go home and drink alone, even if he never drank any other way. If he did go home now, he would drink. A lot.

"Yes."

"I'm busy," Skyfire said hesitantly, swallowing and gesturing lamely when Starscream continued to stare at him. "I've got a… Sorry."

When the words sunk in, it sounded like an excuse. Of course it was an excuse. Something crashed on a microscopic scale inside the younger man, taking his ribcage with it. With a nod, Starscream turned and left.

He only managed two steps of 'leaving' before Skyfire's hand came down on his arm. The big man withdrew it almost immediately—he was learning, which Starscream almost regretted—and straightened his cuffs.

"There are other days of the week," he said, offering his lab partner an uncomfortable smile. "What about Saturday?"

Saturday. Megatron. The one man Skyfire would never meet. The very thought of the older man's name made the Seeker tense up.

"Busy."

Standing on the dark sidewalk with the chemist, everything suddenly seemed surreal. Starscream's little snippet of freedom was suddenly over. The black sky pressed in, a threatening outside force: it was as if all the dark unknown planets had suddenly clustered around Earth, adding their gravity to the night.

"Business function," Starscream felt compelled to add, skin prickling.

"Saturday night? You never stop working," Skyfire marveled, as if uncomprehending of the life-sucking whorl of commerce. He came into a lab, put in his eight hours and left. His job was his passion, not his life; not like Starscream.

"This from the man who sleeps in his lab-coat," Starscream snorted, suddenly eager to get off the subject.

"Could you skip it or cut it short?" Skyfire asked uncertainly, earning himself another derisive noise as Starscream began to walk towards his car. The scientist instantly followed, hands in his pockets.

"If I particularly desired a messy death."

There was no question: Megatron would come after him. There was an even lesser question as to whether he would deserve it. The outing was, after all, part of their deal. Deals demanded a return from both sides.

"What is it?"

"An… outing. With my employer."

He couldn't believe how strange it sounded. Starscream froze with his keys in his hand, vocal chords suddenly a tightrope. His entire self balanced on the fleshy strand for a moment, then plunged.

"He insists on it. Every weekend."

For a moment, the only sound was that of his keys jingling and motors starting up across the parking lot.

"That's…"

Skyfire's faint tone made Starscream turn around, and he read everything on the chemist's mind as if it were spoken aloud. _Strange_, Skyfire's face seemed to say; _uncomfortable_, his eyes agreed. _Unprofessional, unnecessary, awkward_, the curve of his back suggested. _What are you doing with him_? everything else asked. _What does he want from you_?

In that moment, a decision was made. Just as Starscream didn't want Skyfire anywhere near the old warlord, he also didn't want to expose him to the strange, twisted world he worked in—the world that only _became_ twisted when Skyfire looked at him like that, expecting something so different than his high-rise back-alley reality. With those blue eyes on him, Starscream felt the gap between them, the simple discrepancy of morality. The standards that were all-too-normal for him would make Skyfire gasp. Wound his sense of humanity. Complicate things between them.

Just like the fact that the chemist was actually compounding an illegal poison under his direction would complicate everything else.

"I need to go," Starscream said before Skyfire could speak, looking away with suddenly cold skin. He would come back for the other man, he knew. He knew it with a certainty so horribly heavy it was almost comforting, but, tonight, dinner was no longer an option. "Work."

It was never a lie.

* * *

Less then twenty-four hours later, he was back in Megatron's hands. Or clutches, perhaps, was the better term. Now that his eyes had been cleared a bit, it seemed more accurate.

"You seem distracted."

"Do I," was all he could manage, pretending to study a painting to their left. A violinist finished a piece to a polite smattering of applause. Megatron's brow rose.

"And unusually unsure. I can usually count on you to be nothing if resolute."

"I will make an effort to be more decisive, sir." Realizing the older man was still regarding him almost suspiciously, Starscream cleared his throat and tipped the heavy wine bottle sitting between them. "Another glass?"

"If you will try it with me."

"No." It came out too forcefully, a direct slap to Megatron's pointedly pleasant tone. Starscream swallowed, ducking his head. He didn't want to drink. "Red wine gives me headaches."

"Very well, then."

Starscream was incredibly uneasy around the older man the entire night, choosing his words either too carefully or carelessly. His conduct provoked not a few amused or confused glances from Megatron. Regardless of his other expectations of Starscream, he at least anticipated a coherent dinner guest and was being sorely disappointed. Unfortunately, the Seeker's discomfort from the bathroom was spreading to every part of his life, not just from his realization about Skyfire but some basic tenets of his Saturday existence.

Once someone even implied that his weekend outings weren't 'right', it actually made him _think_ about what was happening instead of considering himself lucky to have survived it.

Of course it wasn't professional, but no one ever said D-Con ever was. Over a long Saturday morning filled with paperwork, the Seeker began to realize that Megatron had a certain control over him when he sunk to doling out unfamiliar smiles and praises. Despise him through he did, Starscream could not help but be in awe of the warlord… but awe was convulsive, uncontrollable, and not connected to any finer function. It instilled false feelings—even just a lack of hatred--if just because it blotted out everything else. Starscream simply didn't have room to think about anything consequential with Megatron's charisma at an all-time high and that kind of dumb acquiescence frightened him the more he thought about it.

He simply wasn't himself when he was around Megatron without his uniform. All of his personal goals and self-declared tenets dissolved and he got sucked into whatever the older man wanted short-term (a pliant dinner guest), which also meant he had to face the gritty fact of what Megatron wanted long-term. Then there was… the other side.

Earlier that week, the President and a few D-Con officers had been called down to the tech labs underneath the purple high-rise to witness a demonstration. The new product was something the development team called stasis-cuffs, which were an high-tech form of physical restraint for particularly troublesome or violent criminals. Megatron was planning to sell them at a reduced price to the DPD and offer them to other states under warrantee. It would improve intercity relations and prove that D-Con was about peace as well as war—or that was the plan.

Fresh from months of intensive and rewarding research, the scientists were their own little subsection of showmen: one of them confidently asked for a volunteer to be strapped into the thick, silvery cuffs and all eyes drifted towards one man. Megatron, chest as dense as iron beneath his matching iron-grey suit, was called forward with a tolerating nod. Who better to judge the quality of his own products and give raises where due? His muscles would be the best test possible.

The older man shed his silk coat and stood at the side of the white-lit table while the scientists bustled around for a moment, interlacing wires, rolling up the President's sleeve and placing two dot-sensors on his bicep. Remembering the dancing club, the sight of Megatron's naked vein-strong forearm made Starscream tense, but he was only given a moment to dally on the almost-pleasant feeling.

The moment the lead scientist clapped one side of the stasis cuffs over his thick wrist and the blue strip lit up, Megatron's handsome face lost all color.

The scientist, facing his audience, did not see it. He spoke about the technology behind the cuffs: concentrated electronic signals that scrambled the workings of a human's peripheral nervous system, rendering them temporarily and painlessly paralyzed from shoulders to hands. Lost in his achievement, he punctuated his speech with great affluent gestures starkly in contrast to the tense, disbelieving jitter that had taken root in Megatron's free arm.

The silver-haired man, fingers clawed, pushed at the polished silver cuff locked tightly around his wrist. The yellow line on the pulse monitor turned erratic, somehow excruciating in its randomness and sharpness. His next breath was a rough hiss.

"Take it off."

Everyone heard the rasp of his voice, but Megatron hardly gave the scientist time to respond. His huge hand shot out and seized the thin man by the neck, slamming him face-first into the table with an animal convulsion of his broad shoulders.

"Off," he roared over the awful clang, the silent crunch of cartilage, "Now!"

There was an instant scramble and one scream from an intern. Starscream flinched back, datapad pressed tightly to his quivering chest. Hunched back radiating pain, Megatron's hand tightened further and further on the young man's neck until one shaking scientist succeeded and the cuff came undone with a crisp click.

When the President released the lead scientist, his wet face left a trail of bright red blood over the glossy white table as he slumped to the floor, but more startling still was the manic horror in Megatron's face as he staggered back and looked at his freed hand. Leaning heavily on the blood-smeared table, he flexed the complex, fleshy appendage ceaselessly. Again and again he tensed and released, watching, as if seeking out the functionality of every tendon and bone like trembling circuits and levers, breath coming short and fast.

Then he looked up at the silent room, teeth bared, and there were no proper words. He ripped the sensors off his forearm and stalked out of the lab with heavy panther strides, leaving the schism of his two selves behind.

The scientist was paid off by now, nose patched by their specialist, Hook. There was a slight extension in trial-runs, but otherwise the stasis-cuffs would be released on-time. All should have been well in Starscream's exacting eyes, if just because they were still on schedule, but it _wasn't_--and perhaps that's where Skyfire, _tender_ goody-two-shoes Skyfire, was secretly ruining him.

Seeing both that vicious physicality and that terrifying split in Megatron forced Starscream to remember all of the instances he tried so hard to put out of his mind: every time the older man had cuffed him, sent him sprawling or otherwise never showed the slightest bit of hesitance to use force to punish a wrong. Starscream couldn't say that it was unprovoked or technically spiteful—each time, he did something dangerous or stupid to merit it and that was simply the way their business worked—but Megatron was a force to be dealt with when things didn't go his way.

With the crunch of the scientist's nose, the smiling fox with his silly dances and human tricks was finally overshadowed by Megatron as Starscream had always known him. The grey titan, the tyrant. The man in the lab was his employer, and that man's patience would run out eventually. What would happen when Starscream refused him for the last time?

Starscream could feel the seconds creaking by with horrible slowness and matching weight all the way through dinner. When he turned for his door at the end of the night and Megatron caught his arm, the swinging load fell and hit silently.

He didn't pull away. Why didn't he pull away, when the grip was so slow and deliberate? It had become so much more than just letting the tyrant have what he wanted—small things, a list of petty privileges that began with a kiss on the hand--in the hopes of appeasing him. The hallway was empty and terribly silent. Even as he could sense the danger ahead, there was something in the President's grey eyes that held him to the spot as the fox took him by the waist and bent down, sliding his thumb over Starscream's lips before kissing him.

Starscream closed his eyes, simply responding to the slow, seductive push as Megatron's strong hands said he should. He pushed their noses together softly when the older man parted from him, then leant down again, slightly stronger, dipping into his Second's mouth so smoothly Starscream couldn't help but catch his breath—which was no longer his, after all, but some swelling force given to him by Megatron.

It was as though the man were filling him up with his own hot breath, infusing him with that infuriating attraction until it was clinging to his very blood cells. He was suffocating in the President's arms, pressure rising; Megatron pulled him closer, biting his lip expertly, drawing him out with tiny pinprick pressure. This time Starscream's tongue met him at his lips with a shuddering exhalation as they twined and kissed, both men tightening down to their centers.

Then the older man took what he wanted, fingers digging into Starscream's back, and something velvet and wanting in the Seeker spasmed so hard he pulled away. Aching with lust, the single-most horribly vulnerable noise Starscream had ever made in his entire life slipped out, half a moan and half a whimper. The response in the older man was immediate, as though they were one creature through the heat they shared: he pushed forward, breathing out huskily and crushing his Second to him, hands shaking.

"Starscream," he growled against his lips, as though his name were a curse and a promise in the same moment.

The want in his voice, both tender and brutal, made Starscream want to obey and acquiesce and _surrender_ out of pure awe--and that alone was enough to slap him awake.

Suddenly all the proper mechanisms of Starscream's thin body came flooding back. It brought him out of the ether and back around his bones, tightly lashed there with red muscle. That red muscle contracted painfully as he jerked away and pushed hard at Megatron's chest, heart pounding.

"Leave."

The word was something like a gunshot and silence after it was deafening. For a moment, Starscream could not be sure he spoke it at all. When Megatron did not follow it—indeed, did not move an inch from the Seeker's exposed neck—Starscream caught his breath and edged closer to the wall, every freed blood cell rioting in fear.

He could not obey. Would not obey. A trick.

"How can you be so pathetic?" he whispered, as though it was the other man and not him who had let out that shameful noise. His mind raced, knocking around in the confines of his skull and what he knew of Megatron.

As always, naturally, he came back to business. They were nothing but business. _This_, he realized with an awful tremor, had always been at least half business.

"Can you imagine how this would compromise your public image if anyone saw you groping your Second like a drooling teenager?"

"I can't imagine anything better for your campaign of discrediting me," Megatron murmured, voice strangely distant. His lips slid along his inferior's neck, hand descending on his hip again. "Would you prefer to move this out of sight of the public?"

The door to Starscream's apartment stood behind them, unlocked.

"I owe you nothing but my time and I decide where that is spent. I said _leave_," Starscream snapped immediately, skin so taut he could feel the pulse in his own neck.

For a moment, Megatron simply stood holding his Second in the silent hallway outside the untouched apartment, grip ossifying.

"Your reasons," he said at last, drawing back. His face was dark, but his hands were still cupped around his body, unwilling to give up what ground he had gained.

A true businessman, he wanted conditions. Nothing like _I don't want to_ or _you would use me_ or _I am not her_ or even _you're lying_ came out. Nothing like that, Starscream realized, would work.

"I have my reasons," Starscream grit out, swallowing with difficulty as the older man's grey eyes bore into him, hard as granite. "Isn't it enough that I don't want you here?"

"But you do," he challenged, voice rough; again, he pushed Starscream to him. Sparks shot up his Second's body to be yanked against his hard chest, rushed by his cologne and the physical promise of relief. Megatron's arms encircled him tightly, mouth at his neck. "You shake with it. You desire this just as much as I do."

Wrapped in hard heat, the lure of absolution in complete surrender threatened for only a moment. Megatron wanted them to be something more than enemies, less than lovers. Less than equals, because he hadn't been able to defeat Starscream any other way.

This was their vital red collision: surrender was the warlord's only condition and surrender would be Starscream's only irreversible failure.

"You arrogant bastard," Starscream snapped, ramming his arm between them. Every inch of space gained gave his anger and sense more room to expand and he glared up at his President, lip curled. Megatron glowered down at him, expression equal parts affronted and lethally impatient. Their surreal camaraderie cracked.

"Don't tell me what I want. How dare you assume yourself so knowledgeable on my inner workings? And here you expect me to take your word as living law when you don't respect me enough to take mine as the vaguest of suggestions."

"I give you this, your mangled 'inner workings' are incomprehensible to man or God--but you speak so glibly of respect, Starscream? You haven't the slightest knowledge on the subject. Respect is something you earn," Megatron countered sharply, fingers curling into the other man's suit jacket. Starscream pushed him further away, sneering through the precious new gap between them. Air was suddenly as precious as heat.

"And as far as I've heard, no one ever earned yours while on their hands and knees."

"Which is precisely why you will be on your back, brat," he hissed, eyes narrowing dangerously. "You have dragged out your game long enough. Yield before you make a fool out of yourself."

The flash of steely anger in the older man elicited a starburst of relief in Starscream. This was the Megatron he knew and fought. Make him angry and the suaveness disappeared and his demands, inflexible and pitiless, rose to the surface.

One side was the man, the other a tool and a façade. Starscream took back his willpower in painful gulps, familiar, cleansing ire rising. This was their natural state: clashing, snarling, _hating_.

"This isn't a game. This is a contract, and you have clearly violated it!"

Seeing the incredulous fury in the warlord's face, Starscream raised his voice against both Megatron's looming logic and his own piecemeal weakenings: the way he went limp in the older man's arms night after night still burned his pride, but he had the most impressive talent for lying through his teeth.

"I exchanged professional time for a span of the same caliber. I tolerated your dinners and accompanied you on your fieldtrips. Not _once_ did you mention your intent to hound me into my own damn apartment—"

"Your slithering two-faced stupidity defies words," Megatron burst out, hardly able to speak for his anger. "You would kill a man and blame it on the wind. You not only knew what was occurring but actively participated—to insist otherwise is to go beyond ignorance and into mockery!"

"Only the greatest fool ignores a direct order to leave a man's door, _President_."

"You _never_ give me orders, Seeker," Megatron said slowly, grabbing the young man's thin wrist and clamping down. Starscream immediately pulled against it, teeth bared.

"And your idiocy knows no bounds if you think you can simply _order_ me to—"

"Do you make a game out of pushing men beyond their limits?!"

Starscream's back smacked hard against the wall and he felt the next impact as much as heard it. It was so brutal, so sharp, it almost made his knees give out from the slam of pressure to his right and the crunch of bones and skulls and brittle white things. The noise made him jerk away, then Starscream opened his eyes in the hesitant silence, not even realizing he had closed them.

One of Megatron's hands was around his wrist, pinned to his chest; the other was cut off by plaster, imbedded in the wall. He had punched the wall in, physically unable to stop at shoving him against it. White powdered his cuffs; the big man stood frozen in the after-tremors, absorbing the deafening silence of the hall and the tremors of the thin body trapped beneath his weight.

Starscream stiffly grabbed the hand on his chest, but was too stunned to do anything more than stare at the man—animal--breathing deeply in front of him, pupils reduced to pinpricks. The half-roar of Megatron's voice stayed dark in the air, making his every hair rise underneath a layer of sweat.

The older man stepped back abruptly, releasing his Second's wrist. He searched Starscream's pale face for any proof of what he had just done. It was there.

He smoothed his suit. It was an organic gesture, as natural and trained as the lethal right hook.

The President inhaled again, expression darkening as though several thoughts were flitting through his mind, his taut body—but whether they were defamations, accusations or excuses, Megatron said nothing, simply staring at Starscream's bloodless, half-terrified face.

He had done so much. The incomprehension in his chiseled face proved it. He simply did not understand the distance between them or the blood streaking through the powder on his knuckles, but neither was he willing to accept it. Slowly, Megatron drew a red handkerchief out of his pocket, folding it over his cut knuckles.

"This does not end here."

He studied his Second for one more moment before turning and striding down the hallway, briskly descending the stairs until he was out of sight.

The door to the main stairway clanged shut. When the hallway was clear—truly clear, even of the older man's drugging scent and heat—Starscream took a deep breath. It was his first free breath, potentially triumphant, but something punctured inside of him and all the air and pressure came flooding out, taking with it the last of his strength. The Seeker sunk down to the floor with a dull thump, head falling into his shaking hands simply because it wasn't over.

As it was in the beginning, right or wrong, the unspoken law remained: what the President wanted, the President got, and Megatron's initial strategy was proving worryingly unprofitable.


	46. InLaws

A/N: Woooooo how about that school stuff, seriously. On the plus side (bragbragbragbrag), I kept my 4.0 and got into the 97th percentile on a National Organic Chemistry exam! Wow, brain, thanks!

But I'm back now, with Soundwave-Shockwave crack as directed! Soundwaaaave. Why must you be so adorable and put-upon! Playing with his muteness is altogether too fun and their whole lopsided family unit makes me so very, very happy. Enjoy!

_Characters: Soundwave, Shockwave, Ravage, Bradbury, Rumble, Frenzy, Soundwave-sister-now-named-Karmen_

_Pairings: BradburyxRavage :] Because their kittylove is true. And some Soundwave-Karmen bonding._

_Warning: I could claim honest crack, but Shockwave has very little else in his life. It makes an acceptable amount of sense that he would go along with this, if just to keep himself tuned into the human world and act normal. And plus, he non-likes Soundwave. Kinda. He non-likes Ravage more, definitely, but Soundwave is on the non-like list somewhere._

_Oh, and I know Karmen is canonically (vaguely rarely obscurely) listed as Blaster's sister, but here Blaster is her/Soundwave's half-brother from a family that their daddy made after running off, and the two have nooo idea about it or him. She's a hair-stylist in a fancy boutique!_

* * *

In-Laws

* * *

Soundwave flipped up the lacy purple bed skirt to his sister's bed for the fourth time, staring anxiously into the darkness underneath.

He didn't even look back when five rapid, jarring clacking noises—the sound of foam projectiles being fired from some mammoth plastic device—came from the hall behind him, followed by a husky 'aw, shoot!' from Rumble. Only after wiggling the bed-frill for a moment more did the programmer let it fall, not even attempting to fight off the first stirrings of true worry.

Ravage had been gone for two days. It was now evening, one hour before her dinner time, and while Soundwave could greatly understand why she had taken off and slightly longed to join her (Rumble and Frenzy were in rare shrieking-shooting-lamp-breaking form today, a fact exacerbated by his sister's imminent dinner party), it simply wasn't like her. Bradbury had not dropped by for over a week, which was equally unusual, and Soundwave half-feared she had gone out to look for him. He tried to tell himself she had survived on the street before he found her, but Karmen screaming his name from the kitchen in _that_ tone made him get to his feet with an unheard sigh, resigned to damage control.

Soundwave reached the hallway just as he heard something large and possibly metal slam into the wooden floor. He waited sullenly until the twins bolted into the hallway with a stupidly joyful laugh, then stepped in and slammed the door to the bedrooms, stopping them dead in their tracks. Their sneakers squeaked audibly, faces surprised and scandalized; Rumble's unlaced sneaker caught the edge of a carpet and he skidded to the floor.

"What the heck, Boss!"

Soundwave leaned down and told them off with angry, choppy motions. He finished with his signature 'Uncle' scowl, pointing resolutely towards the kitchen until both Rumble and Frenzy dropped their guns right where they stood, producing a splitting plastic-on-plastic smack, and slouched into the kitchen. Once they were out of sight, Soundwave leaned against the wall and kneaded at his temples.

It was impressive, in some ways, to think how they had gone from ignoring him completely to _only_ paying attention to his silent commands, but it also made him their primary herder and they simply didn't obey their mother half the time. The apartment was simply too small for so much chore-dodging. It might be time for a vacation in his _own_ apartment.

Silent monitors and untouched furniture sounded vaguely nice at the moment.

Pausing only to pop a few orange foam sucker-arrows off the wall, Soundwave went to the living room and looked behind the couch with another worried sigh, wondering where she could be. Feline though Ravage was, she had never genuinely run off before and their apartment complex was not the friendliest of places for small animals. Even squirrels stayed away, possibly because of the twin's love of using them for target practice. Bradbury could brave it all without difficulty, being as he was made out of some kind of shadow material with a clockwork heart, but Ravage?

Following the chaotic trend of the day, three things happened at once: Soundwave's foot caught on the carpet, a gigantic crash came from the kitchen and the doorbell rang.

Soundwave winced when his sister yelled for him again, over Frenzy's indignant "Wadn't my fault!". He gestured helplessly, fully aware she couldn't 'hear' him—she knew he didn't make a habit of answering the door--then just gave up and went to the door. He tugged it open, fully expecting a well-dressed couple with politely dismayed expressions. Instead, there stood a thin blond man in a button-down with a bag over his shoulder.

Oh, and one eye.

Both of Soundwave's very intact eyes went so wide it hurt. He stared unabashedly at Shockwave, _Megatron's assistant_, for a full thirty seconds, incapable of believing his very presence in the doorway; the tall agent simply stared back, expression a mix between tolerating, passive and utterly nothing.

When the communications officer came-to, his first instinct was to run back and get his vocalizer. Shockwave must have seen and failed to react to the terrified look on his face. Half of it was due to the other man's presence, and the other due to the exposed state of his own patchy hands and neck, but Soundwave didn't have long to fret. With a minimal amount of rustling, his coworker promptly reached back in the carrier bag he had over his shoulder and pulled out a silky black something.

"I believe this is yours," he said with perfect flatness.

Ravage looked rather pleased with herself, in a way totally like that of her tomcat beau… who popped out from behind Shockwave with a noisy meow. Bradbury then curled around Shockwave's grey boots and looked upwards expectantly, filled with that inestimable confidence of a cat who considers humanity to be beneath it in all forms.

If possible, Soundwave's jaw dropped further at the sight of the grey tomcat. Unable to connect the two, he pointed downwards then upwards, expression quizzical. Shockwave's eye flickered downwards briefly.

"We have an arrangement."

Soundwave managed to shut his mouth. He had always assumed Bradbury took to the alleyways whenever he wasn't bundled around Ravage. How had he found his way to Shockwave? Suddenly, it all lined up in his mind. Bradbury must have brought Ravage for a visit to his second house. It was the only explanation for why Shockwave was now proffering her like a fruit-basket, and oh--he should really take her, shouldn't he?

Just as Soundwave reached out to scoop up Ravage, the staccato of his sister's heels came from the kitchen and the communications officer stepped aside at a hand on his back.

"I'm so, so sorry, Mr. and M—oh?"

It was only natural that Karmen's wide-eyed gaze stuck on the simple black patch on Shockwave's otherwise handsome face. Frowning, Soundwave propped Ravage against his shoulder and signed 'nothing' and 'work'. He was instantly averse to the idea of his office life making it into the house in any way, but Karmen put one hand on the doorway and made a hoarse sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, coiffed red hair frizzled out with a large chuck of dish-foam in it.

"Well, what do you know. Did you hear that call? All of this trouble and I think all of my dinner guests dropped out in one fell swoop," she said a touch hysterically, cheeks red.

Nodding sympathetically with his cat in-hand, casting Shockwave an apprehensive yet thankful glance, Soundwave turned to herd her back into the apartment. He got a hand on her back, but Karmen suddenly straightened in the doorway and her eyes glinted as if intent on reclaiming some vestige of hostliness. Five-foot-five, full-bodied and standing pretty in a purple sun-dress, his sister suddenly appeared vaguely predatory. Her sights, unfortunately, were set on Shockwave.

"And who are you?"

"A coworker," Shockwave answered. Something dangerous sparked in the woman's face. Any sane man would have stepped backwards, but the agent simply closed the top flap of his bag. "I was returning a misplaced item."

"You work with Soundwave?" she asked. Then, not even pausing, "Do you have plans for dinner?"

Shockwave's only answer was an elevated brow, mouth thin; Soundwave pressed the sign for 'NO' into Karmen's back repeatedly, teeth grit tightly and heart thumping. It was all in vain, and only the first of many times he would be ignored that night. Smiling stiffly, she stepped back to clear the doorway, manicured hand outstretched in an inexplicably threatening way.

"Why don't you come in and fill a seat?"

Anyone could see the gears turning in Shockwave's head, perhaps only exaggerated by his blank expression. It was clear which was the path of least resistance, considering the manic look on the woman's face. Without nodding, he bent down to gather Bradbury with a motion that was somehow like that of an elevator—mechanical and devoid of affection—and followed Karmen inside without looking at Shockwave.

Fresh from eavesdropping at the kitchen doors, Rumble and Frenzy bowled in immediately, a tangle of arms and legs.

"Bradbury!"

The moment they realized the slinky grey cat (their arch nemeses and the one object they simply could not manage to catch in any way, shape or form) was being held by someone they didn't know, the two little boys looked up in something like awe at the very tall, very thin man currently standing in their living room. Then their identical faces lit in an equally impassioned fashion and they both opened their mouths to squeal "PIRATE!" before running back into the kitchen and falling into a gibbering mess.

Hand over his eyes, Soundwave simultaneously hoped Shockwave wasn't a vegetarian and that the evening didn't end in tears, as they would most certainly be his own.

* * *

Within ten minutes, they were all seated at the table. Spoons were sticking at haphazard angles out of potatoes and green beans, thrown in helter-skelter; the butter was nearly perpendicular in its dish. A tense silence befitting the skewed silverware filled the small, uncleaned-yet-meticulous kitchen.

Soundwave had seated himself next to Shockwave out of necessity, which meant he had a perfect view of the twins and the twisty, ecstatic expressions they were trying to hide from him. The two of them were biting something back and Soundwave could _feel_ it like a hand poised above his neck (which was still free of his vocalizer). It was making him hellishly uncomfortable and his sister could sense they were up to no good as well, especially with the way they stared at Shockwave's pale down-turned face as he blandly ate the lemon-thyme chicken without comment.

Their dinner passed in prickly silence until Soundwave accidentally put his glass down and clipped his plate, making a sharp clang—and the floodgates opened.

"What happened to your eye?"

"Rumble!" Karmen exclaimed, stung.

"Is it still there?"

"Or is it, like, completely gone?"

"What th--_Frenzy_!"

Nerves utterly shot, Soundwave slammed his fist on the table warningly for the first and only time in his life, sending glassware rattling. Rumble, pitifully over-stimulated, completely ignored him.

"Yeah, let us see! Let us see!"

The only thing worse than knowing how badly things could turn out was knowing precisely what would cause it to happen—and being forced to watch as it occurred.

Shockwave was a trained assassin. Shockwave was also having dinner in his home, and he knew—no, perhaps the _only_ thing he knew about Shockwave was that the man was not to be asked about his right eye or lack thereof. So when Shockwave's hand moved under the table, within five feet of the gun he always carried on his calve, Soundwave—neglecting the utter stupidity of the idea of murdering a small child in broad daylight for a stupid question, no matter how offensive—reached over and clamped down on the other man's wrist, pinning it to his leg.

Shockwave slowly looked over at him just about the same time that Rumble dropped his fork and shouted "I'll get it!" amidst Karmen's aggravated half-growl. He squirmed under the table like a salamander. Every inch of him prickling, Soundwave vaguely heard the clunk as his nephew's knees hit the floor, then came Rumble's voice, far-away and muffled by the table.

"Um, why are you guys holding hands?"

There was a beat. It was a very long yet very short beat, and still not enough time for Soundwave to let go of the agent's thin wrist. Frenzy, still above the table, looked down then looked up, little face screwed up uncomprehendingly.

"_Dude_, Boss," he said uncertainly, then looked at him in horrible understanding—as if tying together why his uncle didn't _ever_ bring home ladies when the twins were just coming to realize that girls, while being a burden, still possessed at least two very interesting attributes that made them worthwhile companions to older men.

Suddenly, it was as if Shockwave's wrist was electrified. Soundwave let go of him immediately, patchy neck turning three different lamentable shades of pink, but Rumble's tuft was already poking above the table, expression equally dubious.

"Boss? Are you guys, like…?"

Kids these days were too goddamn _aware_. Soundwave's minimal pride was stung something awful, mortified flush moving up to his ears. Again, the communications officer had to deal with the uncomfortable uncertainty of whether Shockwave knew sign-language as he hurriedly denied that they were _involved_ in any way; Karmen, at the edge of her sanity, loudly got onto the twins for anything and everything that had happened that day or the month before, only adding to the chaos of the moment.

"We are coworkers."

Shockwave's quiet yet incredibly attention-catching voice broke the squabble in an instant. Even the twins stared at him, green eyes wide.

'And cat brothers,' Soundwave put in shakily, lamely stacking the signs for 'cat' and 'in-laws'.

"Oh, are you Bradbury's owner?" Karmen asked faintly after a long moment, too tired to be grateful for a distraction.

"Apparently."

She frowned, put-off at his lacking tone. Soundwave signed that he was here returning Ravage, after which the siblings (utterly shot for conversation material and both trying to ignore the twins, who were staring at Soundwave with the utmost of suspicion) wondered at length about where Bradbury came from and what breed he was.

"Russian blue."

They looked at Shockwave in surprise and, when the thin man didn't say anything more, dinner continued.

* * *

Soundwave should have been anxious or even mortified when the twins each managed to take one of Shockwave's hands and rope him into going outside with them, but instead it was just wonderful to have an empty dirty kitchen.

Karmen washed and he dried. It was an old routine from childhood—not that they had shared much of one, seeing how far apart they were. Karmen was seven years older than him and had moved out quickly. Family issues and boyfriend issues. And growing-up-too-fast issues. They all sort of went together, leaving him a little more alone than he should have been. Gave him a lot of time to work on programming, at least.

Mind elsewhere, Soundwave's hand slipped on a damp dish and they both staggered to catch it before it hit the floor. They ended with their knees tangled and their elbows half in the sink, adrenaline pumping ridiculously fast; Karmen laughed sharply and all the leftover tension from dinner broke and dissipated. Soundwave smiled slightly, hunching over as he went back to drying. His sister watched him with a thoughtful expression before patting him on his back.

"Straighten up," she said softly. "You're going to kill your spine that way."

He nodded, exhausted, and did so, knowing he spent too much time at his computer with his back bent double. He had horrible posture and he knew it. But even as he fixed it, Karmen still watched him with an expression that grew steadily mistier as the pile of clean pots got higher and higher.

"Why were you so reluctant to have him to dinner?"

Soundwave frowned. He thought about it for a minute, then carefully sat a pot down and signed 'my business is a strange business'. She seemed to accept it well enough.

"He seemed like a nice man," she said uncertainly. Soundwave huffed: he wouldn't have known what to say to that any day of the week. Karmen got a new dish before adding softly, "I was impressed that you didn't get your talker."

Soundwave swallowed uncomfortably, wiping at his nose. Perhaps she alone knew what a struggle it was to let go of the ability to talk—how much of a private thing his genuine muteness was. He never went in public without his vocalizer. To be without it made him feel horribly vulnerable.

Soundwave looked down at his rough arms and hands and their shiny texture, realizing how exposed he really was. He could have at least put a long-sleeved shirt on or, indeed, gone to get his vocalizer. But he hadn't. Perhaps he'd opted out because he didn't want to put that double-mask on in his own home, or because Shockwave was perhaps the only other person he knew wouldn't care in the slightest. Either way, the other man had seen a side of him that only Karmen and the twins knew: namely, the span from his chin to his nose.

"I'm so grateful for you," his sister said suddenly, green eyes lidded and deep in the dish-water. He looked over, puzzled. "You're all set up, you know. You don't have to be here, but you are."

'You rescued me' he insisted after a moment, a little stunned.

"Maybe. But we're family. It's just what you do. I just…" She took a deep breath, scrubbing intensely at a char-mark on a pan. "The boys would be lost without you. You're exactly the man they need. I just try to think of what it would be like if you'd never stayed with us, how they would have grown up without you, and I get… terrified."

Carefully, responding to the tremble in her voice like a finely-tuned instrument, Soundwave put a hand on her shoulder. The messy split with her boyfriend had been nothing but a distant earthquake to him at the time—something relayed through mutual friends, tinged with an awkward regret that she was pregnant at the time—but when he moved in nine years later, he understood the rift that had been created and the two helpless boys left inside.

Now, sucker guns and broken lamps included, he wouldn't live any other way. This was where he was needed and where he would stay. He loved the twins too intensely for anything else and he needed them just as much as they needed him.

To his left, Karmen wiped her face, perhaps purposefully getting some dishwater on her pink cheeks. He gripped her shoulder with a bracing, shy smile and she turned and abruptly smirked at him, grabbing his belt-loop and tugging. Soundwave let go, huffing amusedly, then tried to look as worried as he possibly could. He glanced backwards, shrugged awkwardly—Karmen watched him carefully, alarmed—then signed 'So, I can sleep here tonight?'

Karmen's instant grin was reward enough for three years of constant and harrowing babysitting.

"Shut up and dry," she deadpanned, tossing him a new towel. He caught it and they smiled at each other one more time. Then the outrageously loud sound of something smashing directly outside the kitchen window made them both turn and freeze, then shout (or mouth) "fuck!"

Soundwave ran out first, purposefully shutting the door on Karmen and kicking it in that funny way that would half-lock it. He ran around the edge of the fenced-in grass, already sweating, then stumbled to a halt in front of a scene that was far worse than he had ever suspected.

Feet braced far apart, Rumble was gripping a complex, beetle-black gun and pointing it at some broken fragments of terracotta, Shockwave watching from the fence.

Wondering why on earth he hadn't heard a gunshot, Soundwave rushed forward and caught his nephew around the waist right as he fired the second shot. It was absolutely soundless, but the fired peg ricocheted off the fence and sent the watching cats running with an offended double-_reaow_. With Rumble slung upside-down over one arm and giggling madly, the communications officer gaped over his emotionless coworker with the hot gun in his hand as if asking _why_. Why would he _ever_ think it was okay to give _guns_ to _twelve-year-olds_?

"They appeared interested in it," Shockwave stated, hefting another black clip in his hand. Frenzy rushed out from behind the bushes and jumped-jumped-jumped for it, bawling for a chance at the firearm. Shockwave dropped it into his hand. "It was only logical to keep them busy in an efficient manner."

If there was one thing Soundwave had learned, it was that logic was not always a winner with children: possibly because it was and would always be logical to simply dispose of them to make life infinitely easier.

* * *

They didn't manage to hide the gun before Karmen got outside, but it didn't matter much. It seemed impossible to actively chastise a man as stoic and inherently dangerous as Shockwave, no matter how many firearms or children were involved, so Karmen settled instead for apologizing to him for fifteen minutes as she chased him and his spook cat out of her apartment. Soundwave did the final honors, ending the misbegotten dinner with a polite get-away-before-my-house-explodes wave that Shockwave returned with a faintly confused stare. After the door shut, the twins were waiting right behind him, sunny grins utterly at odds with their uncle's exhausted look.

"Even if you were gay with him, that'd be okay," Frenzy let him know with horrible swagger, joined by a nod from his twin.

"Yeah, that guy is awesome," Rumble agreed. "And a pirate."

"Can he come over again?"

Without looking down, Soundwave slowly patted their tufty red and purple heads and took three shaky steps before collapsing onto the couch. Springs crunched and sighed; after one or two blinks, the twins ran off to inspect the terra cotta Rumble had blown to pieces. Soundwave was soon joined by Ravage, who circled her tail three times and yawned and curled up on his broad chest with an innocent sigh, happily unaware of the chaos she had begun.

If cats came pre-packaged with boyfriends and in-laws nowadays, Soundwave hadn't been aware--and he shuddered to think what else was in store for him.


	47. Intervention

A/N: Thank god for women who have sense. Now I feel bad that Torque gave her such a mean send-off! Slipstream needs a nice housewife to come home to… of which Torque, admittedly, would not be a good example XP

Next chapter is a Starscream-Skyfire crack chapter, so I promise it'll be fun. Otherwise, new (disturbing) crap on AFFnet if you particularly like the Megatron-plus-prostitute flavor of coarseness.

_Characters: Starscream, Slipstream, mentioned Megatron, mentioned Skyfire_

_Pairings: Megatron/Starscream, Starscream/Skyfire, Slipstream-Starscream bonding_

_Warnings: usuals plus strangely emotional Starscream :[ Murr._

* * *

Intervention

* * *

He was nervous. He had never been this nervous, this _kind_ of nervous, before. Even when Megatron was in the process of _strangling_ him, he had never felt this goddamn wrecked.

Starscream worked to the best of his abilities, despite his lack of sleep, and meetings were fine. Meetings required poker-faces, as though the rest of the building—probably their entire board of associates–didn't know there was always something rank going on between the two of them. No, it was the water-tank moments Starscream feared, the in-between seconds where they crossed paths in the hallway with a file-bundle in-hand and Megatron slowed a fraction and he _had_ to look up.

Anything else would have been cowardice.

"There is a dinner."

He could only manage sentence fragments with Megatron regarding him so intently. There was a small rustle as the President put a sheathe of papers on Shockwave's desk and took off his rectangular glasses. Starscream's heart gave an awful thud, nearly audible in the empty 53rd-floor foyer.

"This Saturday. With my family."

He was sweating underneath his jacket. Shaking. Didn't think he was going to pull this card, but Saturday is only four days away and the thought of being within five feet of the older man, _alone_, that soon—it made him want to drop the datapad he was holding and sprint outside. Keep sprinting until he ran out of road.

He could feel Megatron staring at him; dissecting his habits, recent statements, demeanor. Evaluating. Weighing costs and gains and determining percentage chances.

There was nothing human about him beneath the surface, but he was the grandest fucking machine that had ever been built.

"I will make an exception," Megatron answered after a long pause, deep voice horribly clear and twice as professional. He scribbled something on a notepad and propped it against Shockwave's monitor. "I would not interfere with Seeker business. Your mother would, no doubt, have something spirited to say about it… and something tells me it is not in my best interests to cross her."

It wasn't kindness in his voice, but something far more practiced and calculating. Normal Megatron would have immediately removed his lab time for the next week. This Megatron, grey eyes conflicted but fist firm, kept his peace and watched Starscream finish downloading an updated schedule from the desk computer.

_This_ Starscream, also a different creature, half-bowed, tucked the pad under his arm and started for the hallway.

"Thank you, President."

He made it all the way to the threshold before Megatron spoke.

"Starscream."

It was just his name—so damn simple—but the push of expectation and unyielding heat in it made the Seeker nearly fall to the floor. Without even stopping, without even _pretending_ like he hadn't heard, Starscream ducked around the corner and ran for the restroom. He shouldered it open and reached for the nearest sink, data-pad clattering to the floor and he hoped, prayed, please, _please don't let him follow me_.

The door did not creak open and flap shut; all was silence. Once, twice, three times Starscream threw cold water in his face. He grit his teeth, trying to swallow what he was living through.

He wasn't supposed to be _afraid_ of Megatron. Never, _never_ had he been afraid of him, or so he liked to believe. The Seeker stood there and simply felt his momentary isolation, his slim safety, and talked himself into not shaking. He would be fine. He had escaped Saturday. After a moment, he exhaled into his soaking collar and straightened, twitching as he realized someone was standing right behind him in the water-spattered bathroom mirror.

At first, it was like seeing mother with her hair drawn up, and that corked his breath so hard it _hurt_. Then Starscream saw his sister and his mouth opened, stress curdling quickly into a thorny lump of rage ready to be tossed at the nearest person.

He turned, but before he could say anything, Slipstream had taken his shoulders and yanked him against her full front. He stiffened but she kept him there, locked tighter than a wrestler. He squirmed. It took a few nanoseconds of being held in the strange arm-lock before Starscream realized… that was it.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded at last, twisting harder in her grip.

"It's called a hug, imbecile," she said over his shoulder, voice ridiculously steely.

Starscream's expression dropped from irritated to comically stymied. He still had every right to be disturbed: Slipstream had hugged him twice in his entire 27 years of existence. Their family simply didn't _touch_. He exhaled in base relief when she drew away, then awkwardly caught his breath again when she looked up into his face, all business and wicked mascara.

"What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _you_?" he countered, hating the crack in his voice. She rolled her eyes like she had expected that.

"You're a wreck in meetings. You can't string two sentences together. You're avoiding Megatron."

Starscream flinched. He hid it by looking down and 'fixing' his hair in the mirror. The dark swath had lost most or all of its luxurious sheen. Skin, pasty. Under-eye bags, dark. The Seeker swallowed hard.

"Don't I always?"

"Yes, but you're never incoherent when you do it," Slipstream said, studying his drawn face. She put her hands on her hips. "And Megatron never excuses you."

Starscream's heart-rate doubled in one jolt. He couldn't even hide the weakness that shot through him, because the idea of Megatron simply _allowing_ him to avoid him… it was terrifying. Staggeringly out of character. The only reason the older man would allow him to either skimp on his job or indirectly disrespect him was that he thought he was going to get what he wanted in the long run. Meaning, Megatron honestly thought he was closing in. And maybe he was.

Was he?

"Don't you see what's going on?" Slipstream asked sharply to his right. When Starscream only looked down at her hazily, dark eyes puzzled, she made an aggravated noise and tossed her hand up. "My god, you've shot yourself in the foot as you always do and you don't even have the sense to realize you're bleeding out."

Her tone snapped him out of whatever helpless place he was in. Anger, at least, was a stepping stone to decisive thinking. Starscream riled, teeth gritted.

"If you came in here to tell me I'm _stupid_—"

"A stupid man wouldn't have lasted a week against Megatron at his best. You aren't even moderately close to stupid. He's just extorting your one weakness and you're falling for it."

"_Weakness_?" Starscream said incredulously, turning with his lip curled.

"_Don't_. Don't even _start_ with me," she said with sudden viciousness, then visibly muscled herself back together with a deep, controlled breath. She put her head in her hands for a moment, fine brows knitting severely.

Struck into silence, Starscream could feel her thoughts gathering like a great wet storm-cloud, not liking the resultant weight in the air. When she spoke, he had the feeling it would be an ultimate truth.

She took another deep breath, then exhaled.

"You are the worst Second ever."

Starscream opened his mouth out of reflex more than anything, but Slipstream cut him off with a hand.

"_Listen_ to me, Starscream. I'm just telling you what I see, because obviously you couldn't see a threat if it was gnawing on your dick. You are the _worst_ Second _ever_."

She paused to see if he would speak. Starscream's bloodshot eyes narrowed, thin frame radiating resentment, but he stayed silent. She sighed.

"You don't follow him half the time, the other half you're trying to recruit for your own fantasy regime. He should have fired you the moment you walked in the door and the only reason he's holding onto you is because you _could_ be the best asset he has. But he can't get to you, can't _convince_ you to stop rebelling no matter the bribe or the threat—and then you make a god-awful snafu about not sleeping with him when all of your other morals point counter to it."

"I have every right to. You _know_ why," he hissed quickly, hoarsely, hands balling into fists.

"I know why." Her voice softened just a fraction, her fingers fluttering as if she wanted to touch him somehow. She shook her head. "But you honestly think he cares about your reasons?"

Slipstream knew. She was the one who came into his room and held him directly after he came home for Christmas. After _you'll just have to be more careful next time_.

He had been too exhausted to cry, but she held him against her chest (he remembered her button-down, her men's cologne; remembered feeling awkward but safe) and told him about when she first cut her hair. It was an awful story. A story made awful by mother. From that moment on, their mother was something less than a parent and only slightly better than an enemy. They aligned against her as no one else could, even if some black centrifugal force kept pulling Starscream back.

Mother said Megatron was the best he was going to get, and nightmares of the President slamming him back against a bare laboratory shelf had woken him twice that weekend.

"It only explains why he's attacking you from this angle and so obsessively. As I see it, this comes down to sex in only the most symbolic of senses, Starscream. You've shown him a weakness and he's trying to conquer you through it." She searched his face for understanding. When there was nothing but wary, wide-eyed staring, Slipstream sighed. "If he can make you break your own rules and make you _like_ submission, he thinks he can own the rest of you. He thinks you'll capitulate on every other point and obey him until the end of time. General consensus says you're good, but do you think he would honestly put so much in _just_ for a fuck?"

Absolute silence followed her explanation—because explanation it was, pre-prepared and conscientious. She had been waiting to talk to him. Wanting to.

Starscream looked stunned that she had expressed all of his overblown problems in a single swoop, but his actual awe lay in something far more basic. Something he thought never applied. He swallowed.

"You actually—"

"Pay attention, yes," Slipstream said shortly. She crossed her arms. "We all do, Starscream. You have your entire family around you, you just don't choose to talk to any of us."

Starscream stared at her hard expression and simply tried to comprehend it: so many people _paying attention_. And, assumedly, caring somewhat. Slipstream paid so much attention that, probably just by catching the tail-end of his exchange with Megatron, she had known to follow him. Even that time in the elevator, she was trying, in her own way, to remind him why he shouldn't sleep with the man he considered his mortal enemy. She had been aghast to realize he had let himself be tricked closer to the older man and was trying to convince him not to give in, because it would ruin him in a split second.

Starscream realized, all over again, that she was right. If Megatron managed to make him submit on that one count, he would have shamed _himself_ into obeying the other man. He would have realized he wasn't strong enough to fight Megatron on any count. His mouth fell open, and by the time he'd spoken, he hardly believed he'd said the words.

"What… can I do?"

"Stop the deal," she said calmly. If she was surprised he had actually asked for her help—admitted weakness—she didn't show it. "He wants to corner you when you're alone. If you stop the deal, he won't have that avenue to get to you. He'll be forced to keep it in the office and even he isn't stupid enough to try and get you on his desk. Then keep your head down and stop trying to rebel: give him what he needs and eventually—hopefully-he'll forget what he wants."

Her instructions settled hard on his skull, not quite penetrating. It wasn't the thought of working proactively with the bastard and abandoning his own ambitions that shocked him, but the thought of his regular Wednesdays. The smell of acetone and the occasional soft, lame chuckle. Gripping the edge of the slippery sink, Starscream looked almost panicked.

"No-but that means I can't—"

He recoiled, pinching the bridge of his nose. Damnit. What was that note of panic in his voice, the ugly crack in it? He could hardly keep track of all his goddamn cracks, now. Starscream could feel everything he was feeling and _had ever_ felt leaking out into the air like a gush of poisonous gas. It's a wonder Slipstream wasn't choking, although her expression was strangely sad.

"The scientist," Slipstream said simply. Starscream gestured jerkily, too humiliated to bother with much else. His face burned.

"I'm sure he has a life outside of that lab," she offered, looking at the wall. "Talk to him. Find out when he's free."

"He wouldn't want to," Starscream said quickly, hand over his mouth.

"My god, do you really think you're so repulsive?"

It wasn't that. Really, he didn't even know why he said that.

It came down to the principal of the thing. He just couldn't imagine getting to Skyfire without that avenue: without having something to talk about. Perhaps it was more about what it took from _him_ to call Skyfire up and ask him out somewhere. A commitment, an investment. Coming together with someone to accomplish a task was one thing, but being with someone simply for the sake of being with someone scared the hell out of him.

And he wanted to. Be with Skyfire, that is.

"You aren't."

Slipstream again. Voice soft, again. Her hands came down on both of his arms, but he couldn't even feel her nails.

"You just do a damn good job of pretending to be."

Before he knew it, he was sniffling.

It wasn't so much what she said. It wasn't so much any one thing, but _all_ of it. That was as far as it got—sniffling and just one embarrassing choking noise—but it was enough to make his older sister tug him to her chest again, holding him awkwardly. Neither were very adept at holding or being held, but their abrasive, cockeyed pieces came together well enough for a quiet bathroom moment. Starscream let his cheek fall into her curly hair and even managed to put a hand on her back.

She smelled utterly different from mother. Like evergreens and clean musk. Safe, sturdy. Hard but willing to help. Watchful.

To their right, the door to the restroom flapped open, excused with an immediate, embarrassed apology from the intruder. A 50th floor flunkie. Starscream felt Slipstream smirk against his shoulder and drew back a little. Made himself speak.

"This is… a men's restroom. You shouldn't be in here."

"You know I have more testosterone in my little finger than Warp has in his whole body," she said dismissively, making her little brother smile for the first time in weeks. Then she looked straight at him again, dark eyes serious. "Talk to Thundercracker. He needs to hear from you."

"What?" he asked hazily, brow furrowing. "Why?"

"Do you honestly have the arrogance to think you're the only one who's legitimately messed up because of mother?"

Her eyes narrowed; he could feel her unspoken accusation claim the air between them. He didn't _pay attention_. For the first time in his life, he felt genuinely ashamed of his egocentric universe and all the people rotating, unseen, beyond his scope.

"We're all trying to live normal lives and failing miserably. You've been awful to Thundercracker and Warp. They want to know you and help if they can. You can help them as well."

"How?" Starscream could never remember asking so many important, nearly-needed questions in such a short period. Slipstream shook her head, dry smirk reappearing.

"Just by being miserable with them, at this point."

Slipstream knew more than she let on. She was the one who talked to all of them and knew their troubles, if not intimately than with passing literacy. All of the Seeker siblings had all managed, at least, to stay aware of each other's existence through their time-tested methods of squabbling with each other, but Thundercracker was more betrayed by Starscream's brushing-off of his triplets than he let on. TC was about to write him off as a human being and Skywarp didn't have the guts or the evidence to talk him out of it.

Slipstream couldn't let them part. They were important to each other, they just didn't remember. All of them were important. Family.

If Starscream would just sit down with them, she knew—prayed—that everything would work itself out. It had to.

"You should put all of this in your schedule. Wouldn't want you to forget," she said, pointing down at the discarded data-pad. It took Starscream a moment to realize what it was, then another moment to pray that he hadn't broken it as he scooped it up off the floor. It was in one piece. Good.

"Good," he said aloud, then looked back at his sister and scowled out of nothing more than face-saving instinct. She began to walk past him and he straightened and brushed off his sleeves as if they had been dragged across the bathroom floor as well. His arrogance gave a rousing flutter. He swallowed.

"Nice talk and all, but were you absolutely determined hug me?"

"Yes," Slipstream answered flatly, one hand on the door. "I needed a stupid stunt to catch your attention. You wouldn't have heard me out otherwise."

Starscream realized, with an awfully clear and clearly awful jolt, that it was true. He would have disregarded her immediately. It was only by the grace of god that he shut up long enough to hear her out. Everyone else hadn't been given a chance to comment on the extremely stupid life he was currently living. He hadn't let them.

Starscream looked up, uncomfortable expression already seeking some kind of forgiveness from his sister. She looked over her shoulder, opening the door.

"Talk to Thundercracker. Cancel the deal." She smiled, blank and a little brittle, but just as soon as it appeared it was gone. "And for gods' sake be careful. Never forget, you're dealing with Megatron."

And Megatron, as a rule, didn't take kindly to refusal of any sort.


	48. Outing

A/N: HAWHAWHAW I finally found another place for you, little one! Crack chapter plus awful ending, enjoy it for the hilarious filth it is.

My challenge to you, readers: suggest a lifemate for Anicon. Cos he seriously needs one, or else he's going to be making cameos UNTIL WE ALL DIE.

**Also, a note**: those of you who keep an eye on me (you creepers) will have noticed that I'm currently head-over-heels with a comic called **Hanna is Not a Boy's Name**, which you should now subsequently read because it's awesome.

Several of you have sent me gentle (and not-so-gentle) reminders that you're still interested in this fic and worried that I, like a super-dick, have abandoned it. I'm asking you not to worry.

I have a very good track-record of finishing things that I start and I love this piece and OC. It just will be a little... no, honesty, a lot slower as I juggle HiNaBN fic too. And hey, seriously. I've written forty-seven chapters for this fic, ninety-three with OC included and that's not even including the R-rated stuff; I have been updating faithfully on a weekly basis whenever I can for a year and a half; and I'm so excited about Hanna that my brain won't shut up. So give me a break to get some new fandom blood into my dry veins, yeah? I swear I will finish both this and Odd Couple, and then probably have more material that I'll find a way to give you, sloppy as it will be.

Toodles and enjoy the chapter that is totally Miss Regala's fault. That's right sweetie. Blaming you all the way.

_Characters: Skyfire, Starscream, brief Megatron, CAMEO HMMM, NOTHER CAMEO, MORE CAMEOS HMMMM_

_Pairings: Super-hilarious Starscream/Skyfire, Megatron/Starscream_

_Warnings: None, actually the tamest chapter in… forever. And cracky._

* * *

Outing

* * *

Of all Starscream's unpleasant habits, Skyfire never thought he would come to regret the Seeker heir's transparency the most.

Normally, Skyfire appreciated honesty in those he worked with, but packaged with Starscream's immovable superiority and habit of flinging very delicate instruments around when he was_ definitely not_ upset, it was becoming a headache. Skyfire tried not to jump when something clattered alarmingly behind him and bit back a sigh. This was going to be a long day.

"I can't concentrate," Starscream growled at last, like it was some kind of admission that hadn't become horribly apparent a half-hour earlier. He'd barely laid hands on the samples. The Seeker heir glared over his shoulder at the big, white. completely absorbed hump that was Skyfire's hunched back. "How long until you're done with that?"

"Just a few more minutes, I think," the chemist said, dropping words one-by-one just like he administered the solution in his hand. He was looking forward to this one. He was finally honing in on how to prevent the stereomutation that made it so difficult to isolate s-trans species. They needed it later for a step in the synthesis that was proving especially tricky.

"Good, wrap it up," Starscream said brusquely, and the other man almost _heard_ the hair-toss. His stool made a staggering screech when he stood up, snapping his gloves off.

"Uh… why?" Skyfire murmured slowly, one eye still on his mixture.

"I'm taking you shopping."

"What? What does that have to do with—_what_?"

It took a minute to register and even then it didn't make _sense_. Incredulous, he scooted out and put his hands out, lost. _Shopping_? Starscream turned a sharp eye on him, heel practically sparking against the tile, and Skyfire re-realized what a terror he was in the business world.

"I told you, I can't concentrate and I can't stand wasting time."

"Just because you can't concentrate doesn't mean I can't," Skyfire protested faintly, not sure how to deal with this dearly determined Starscream. The younger man had taken orders flawlessly for weeks, surprising the chemist with his aptitude for completing tasks and deferring to him when necessary, but apparently that allowance was up now and he needed to lord over someone for his day to be complete.

Skyfire, making a hasty and inexperienced decision not to be trodden on, took a deep breath, glancing at Starscream over his shoulder.

"And if you don't… if you don't want to work, you can… leave."

"I will," Starscream answered coolly, surprising Skyfire and then depressing him deeply when he started to un-suit with a horribly superior I-always-get-what-I-want look. "And you're leaving with me."

"What—no!" he sputtered, snapping his goggles up onto his forehead. He was reduced to gaping. "And what in the world would we shop for any—"

"You work late anyways, coming in here at all hours," Starscream cut him off, unexpected venom in his voice. Quieted, Skyfire got a sudden slap-in-the-face impression that the Seeker heir was jealous of his freedom, and the fact he was doing even _more_ experimentation without Starscream. The younger man gave him a look both chilly and challenging. "You can spare an afternoon."

"I have to work! That's what you're paying me for!" he tried helplessly, but Starscream's eyes flashed as if black hellfire had been lit under him and he knew he'd made a mistake.

"And as your _boss_, I'm telling you you can spare an afternoon!"

Starscream had an irritating habit of telling people what they could and couldn't do. Even more irritatingly, they often turned out to be right, if just because, with the proper amount of yelling, it became the World According to Starscream. Skyfire certainly felt as if he were exiting the world as he knew it as the Seeker heir led him along to his car and then downtown, into a narrow street-front store with an all-glass front and a marble floor.

In the lab, at least, Skyfire could hold superior knowledge over his old classmate, along with the helpful threat of things exploding if not handled correctly. This, however, was Starscream's realm and Skyfire immediately felt his proverbial tail snap between his legs just like it had at Iacon. His slouch doubled the moment he stepped inside the chilly store, looking up at the grand crystal decorations uncomfortably.

It felt like he was attending a formal function and was scandalously underdressed; an impeccably groomed store clerk gave him an incredulous look that made the huge chemist pluck at his baggy jeans and stare determinedly at the whorls of cream marble underneath his old loafers. Starscream sliced across the floor like he owned the place, finding an employee with his same orientation (quite literally: the cock of their hips almost mirrored one another, except _of course_ Starscream's was more dramatic) and pointing him out from twenty feet away like a redheaded stepchild. A look of horror flashed over the employee's face and Skyfire really considered just _leaving_. No matter the hell he would have to face from Starscream later or the taxi-fare home, this was a humiliation not worth facing.

Unfortunately, before he could rally the wilting remnants of his spine and make his grand stand, Starscream came back over to him and forcibly steered him to a rack full of shirts, shoving him chest-deep in it.

"Pick out something you like," he ordered, taloned fingers already deep in the row of button-downs, then Starscream looked at him as if seeing him for the first time: because Skyfire dressed the way he liked. His brow shot up. "Never-mind. Just pick something not horrible."

He didn't know what to do with those directions, so he just sifted through the rack with wide eyes, grimace etched into his face. He was dazzled and confused by the rash of exquisitely embroidered labels he'd never seen before, each one self-important and needy. And, of course, horribly expensive.

When he picked out a blue polo shirt that definitely didn't seem horrible, the price tag glittered forebodingly at the sleeve; he picked it up and his mouth fell open in horror.

"One hundred dollars? For a… polo shirt?"

"That's ridiculous." Starscream muttered, leaning over with a scornful look on his narrow face. Hopeful, Skyfire looked over in relief that he was _not_ crazy and people didn't buy clothes for such outrageous fees, then Starscream rustled around with the rack and thrust something else into his hands. "That brand is dying in its own filth, I wouldn't take it if they paid me to. Try this."

Two-hundred and fifty dollars. _Two-hundred and fifty dollars_. Skyfire's mouth dropped open even further and all the blood in his enormous frame packed up and moved for his feet.

"That's insane!"

"You have a salary now, you may as well _use_ it," Starscream pointed out, not really pivoting to the side to hide the exasperated roll of his eyes.

"I want to pay my rent." Skyfire said faintly, still staring at the 2 and the 5 and the other 0 as if pleading with the decimal to hop over a place.

"Are you seriously so devoid of imagination?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed, shoving both of the shirts back onto the rack then getting the hangars tangled and fumbling with them for an excruciating moment before they dropped to the floor while Starscream looked on, intensely-nay, suicidally unimpressed. When he finally got them back where they belonged—but in the wrong brand section—the Seeker heir brushed the hair out of his eyes in a suffering manner, shaking his head.

"At this point I'll be content if you don't break every window before we leave," he sighed. He turned and gave an imperious come-hither-peon twitch of his fingers, Skyfire had no choice but to follow him deeper into the jungle that was high fashion, head low. Starscream was his only protection in a land he did not know and feared deeply above all else.

* * *

After some intensive digging, during which Starscream poked his head out and bitched from time to time about why the hell he had to be so freakishly _huge_, the Seeker emerged with a whole pile of clothes—but that wasn't it. Skyfire couldn't just throw them on like he did with his stockpile of semi-formal neutrals. Each article had to go with other certain articles in a specific, highly fashionable combination and Starscream demanded to see every one.

The beleaguered chemist began to feel a bit like a big burly Barbie-doll, as Star was surely just toying with him at this point and the helpers were having a horrible amount of fun prancing around and taking his rejected clothes and sneaking peeks at him. He had the nasty feeling there was a betting pool going around, but over what he didn't know.

Skyfire's elbows knocked into the sides of the tiny chique dressing room for the fiftieth time and he stared at the new pile of clothes hopelessly, pants half-way down his legs. Suddenly the door slammed open and Starscream barged in with a new strictly-folded stack of shirts. Skyfire yelled and yanked his pants up, stumbling and falling into the wall hard enough to create a boom. The skinny dressing-room mirror jolted to the floor, unbroken, and his remaining arm looped tightly over his naked white chest.

"Starscream!"

"Don't be such a prude," the other man snapped, tossing down the stack without as much as a glance in his direction. "I've seen everything you might have and can guarantee you I've seen better. Put those on. And let me see them."

_Well_, the slightly-guilty thought admonished Starscream as he stalked out and reluctantly shut the door behind him, _at least your equal_.

After a few minutes of tussling, Skyfire wandered out with his head low. He was extra-slouching in the uncomfortable wrappings; Starsream immediately gave him a slap on the back to make him straighten and strut properly for his approval. The big man twisted in the tight clothing, t-shirt clinging mercilessly around his barrel chest and broad shoulders. His dark jeans were artificially worn at the knees and made his thighs feel like sausages dying in their wrappings. A leather jacket hung over his titanic shoulders.

Skyfire had to admit one thing: Starscream was an organizer. He was efficient and merciless, even in matters of fashion. Now the chemist could easily see what he did in D-Con and how terrifying he could be when everyone didn't cooperate wordlessly and cram their metaphorical ass into the tightest metaphorical jeans ever with a smile.

Skyfire looked in the mirror, seeing a rumpled man surgically implanted into the same clothes that the rare jocks at Iacon wore so many years ago. He felt a sigh budding and bit it back. He was so much more suited to polos and the occasional sweater. Machine-washable and functional. Anything that could be topped with a tie.

"I look like a douchebag," he said uncomfortably, big hand worrying at the nonexistent pocket of the jeans. Who would make jeans if they didn't have pockets?

"Douchery never goes out of season," Starscream muttered to himself, looking him over with a critical eye. The younger man took a moment to circle him like a fashion vulture, plucking at belt-loops and things. When Skyfire began to protest, Star grabbed his arm and pointed over to the main counter. "You see that man over there? He owns this store, licensed half of these clothes lines and has his pick of all of them. What does he look like?"

"A douche," Skyfire said quietly.

"Exactly. And those men over there, with those girls?"

They were also pillowing their indolent leaning with dickishly pre-worn jeans and jackets, and the girls with them looked like they were quite impressed. Skyfire's grimace was his answer. Starscream nodded and curtly yanked his word-spattered-but-illegible graphic t-shirt straight.

"Precisely. You're never going to get anywhere with anyone unless you make it loud and clear that you have better things to do."

Skyfire gaped at that particularly twisted bit of wisdom, but he was distracted almost immediately by the very same douche owner striding over and chatting with Starscream. He asked him how his family was (dropping several names to show he knew the Seeker family intimately enough and was intensely grateful for their patronage) and asked him if he needed anything. Starscream named a ridiculously specific variety of ginger chai latte without turning around, and Skyfire wondered what kind of alien rich-men's world he'd dropped into when the owner nodded and went off to fetch it. He returned with a crystal cup topped with whipped cream. Starscream took it and promptly flicked the topping off into the trash, taking a few gulps and returning to the task of civilizing Skyfire.

Starscream was eventually forced off to another section of the store by dwindling size-choices, leaving Skyfire to fight his way into a new set of clothes. It wasn't long before the Seeker heir learned he couldn't even leave Skyfire _alone_: when he came back, the big man was talking to one of the customers who had taken to watching the spectacle.

He wouldn't have known it was Skyfire if not for the black leather pants he had picked out. It had been something of a joke, but Skyfire was so pathetically fashion-backwards that he didn't even give them a second glance before snatching them from Starscream's arms and disappearing into the dressing room, but the little boy talking up at the chemist with an adoring expression on his round, boy-scout face obviously thought them _dashing_.

"—what I'm writing m-my thesis over."

"Really? That sounds so complex."

"N-not when you've b-been around plants as long as I have," the little boy pshawed him, lightly freckled face lighting up. He ran his hands over his foppish white-blond hair nervously, squirming some. "I'm p-practically one m-myself, except I don't g-get, um-don't get near enough sunlight."

Skyfire laughed at that, completely unaware of the gaggle behind him staring at his ass. His suddenly-actually very nice, high-set ass that Starscream felt he had some sort of claim to, owing as he was the one who gift-wrapped it.

"That's incredible. So you're planning on debuting this to Sumdac when you can gather enough backers."

"Absolutely! I'm p-positive that the possibilities of fermenting our own energy sources from organic materials w-was always incredibly u-under—uti—uti—s-sorry," the boy gasped. He clapped his hands over his mouth, both for getting too excited and being so near a handsome man with a _brain_.

"Don't apologize," Skyfire chuckled in his signature deep-voiced-male way—just about the only thing gorgeously masculine about him—and sent the little twink blushing as intensely as the pink shirt he was wearing.

That Starscream could have abided. But then the little cretin took a trembling attempt at cocking his hip, one finger circling on his own chest, looking up at the big man with lidded eyes. He might as well have been wearing a sign that said 'come home with me please', and that was absolutely unacceptable.

Skyfire was not going _anywhere_, and certainly not without him.

"Excuse me," Starscream said coldly, hardly knowing how he had crossed the floor so fast. He hooked his skinny arm around Skyfire's thick middle, ignoring the older man's startled oomf and relishing the boy's sudden expression of fear. He forced a smile and made sure all of his canines were showing. "He's with me."

"Idiot little twink," Starscream muttered through his teeth as soon as they were ten feet away, fur still bristling something vicious. He looked back at the dejected little boy, arm still hooked possessively around Skyfire, who tried to gently dig his heels into the marble to stop their near-run.

"Uh, Starscream?"

"_What_?" the Seeker snapped, then swallowed and muscled himself down after the utterly perplexed look on Skyfire's face—he hadn't even realized what had occurred five seconds ago! 'Just talking', he betted! He forced himself to speak softer. "What?"

"Are you really serious about these?"

Starscream glared at the tight leather pants, then forced himself to sigh again, lacking even the energy to point Skyfire's stupidity out to himself. The big man's lack of horse sense was absolutely befuddling, especially after seeing how intelligent he was everywhere else. He made a vague, hopeless gesture with his hand.

"An experiment. Here's some jeans. The floor-boy had to run all the way to the back for them," he said, as a last minute jab to make Skyfire feel guilty for his gigantic size-for all that Star was _doing_ to accommodate his freakishness-but Skyfire only took the jeans with a sincere 'thanks' and trotted off. Suddenly exhausted, Starscream leaned against the nearest object (which happened to be an undressed mannequin) and sighed so deeply it reached his fashionably boot-enclosed toes.

Then he looked over at the gaggle still waiting at the dressing room and hissed, scowling as they all scattered like cockroaches. He tapped his foot until Skyfire exited, already opening his mouth to chastise him more, but then stopped mid-step and suddenly ducked behind the far larger man. The reason for his sudden rearrangement: walking past the storefront window was a shorter, stocker man with angular red glasses and two bright-haired brats jumping at his knees. And, worse, they had stopped to have some sort of conversation.

No misunderstandings, Starscream would never hide from someone as low as Soundwave, but he couldn't afford to be seen out like this with Skyfire. Megatron thought that their relationship was constrained to the lab, and that assumption was keeping him safe. The Seeker's mind briefly strayed to the promise he'd made to Slipstream and he shut it down immediately, grimacing so hard it hurt. He would deal with it. Just not right now.

"What are you—what?" Skyfire blustered a foot above him, twisting at the waist. Starscream dug his nails into said waist and he quit moving with a deep sound of surprise.

"Make your shoe-size useful and just don't move for a second," he hissed, then added so that Skyfire wouldn't use all that questioning breath stored precariously in his lungs, "It's a coworker and word travels fast where I work. Just stay still."

"The guy with the dark hair and the glasses?" Skyfire asked after a moment, obviously feeling silly just standing in front of the full-length window as a shield.

"Soundwave," he confirmed with a glance under Skyfire's arm. He wondered why the other man didn't have his ugly little voice-box on, then he caught a glimpse of the communications officer making some intelligent hand-gestures to the little boy with purple hair and it clicked. Made sense that he would know a bit of that. Poor bastard couldn't talk, after all.

"Are those his kids?"

"Hell if I know," Starscream muttered, then, at Skyfire's confused and disappointed over-the-shoulder look, he took a nice conscientious breath. Trying to be _good_, he squinted hard at the little nuisances. "Nephews, I think. Yes, that's it."

"Are you very close with your coworkers?" the chemist asked, stymied. He had known all of the professor's wives or at least known their family status. Starscream sounded like he didn't know whether or not Soundwave had even reproduced.

"I don't trust any of them farther than I can throw them," Starscream replied flatly. Soundwave's brats had broken into his office once. That hadn't gone well for either him or them. Shockwave had interfered before he broke their heads open, unfortunately, and no one had offered to replace the priceless leather jacket they introduced to his paper-shredder. "Especially Soundwave. Imbecile has his fingers in everything and reports directly to Megatron."

"He looks a good guy."

Another glance let him see that the man across the street now had one nephew on his wide shoulders. The other was hopping in front of him, making air-guitar-like motions and telling him something he looked very interested in. He still wore gloves, but his vocalizer was absent and a warm, calm smile had replaced it. He looked… blissful, almost, as if he had found the maximum grace to be obtained in walking down the street.

Not liking the sudden shift in attention, Starscream waited until the threesome were barely out of sight before pivoting and grabbing the chemist's arm, more uncomfortable than he could say in thinking about how much Skyfire valued _goodness_.

"Mirror. Now."

After dragging him in front of the three-way mirror, Starscream paused a hard moment before violently mussing up the other man's hair in a _proper_ I-just-had-sex-then-put-gel-in-it-so-everyone-else-can-see-I-had-sex way, took away his glasses (Skyfire groped for them with a pleading, kicked puppy noise and it amused and pleased Starscream more than he could say to keep them out of his reach) and had him turn.

"Turn," he said after a moment, hand to his chin. "Turn again."

Which wouldn't have been so damn suspicious if he hadn't already asked him to turn about ten times before that.

_God_ he had a nice ass. How could he have such a nice ass? Why did God have such a cruel sense of humor? Starscream bit his lip behind his hand.

Crucified in front of the mirror with his arms out, Skyfire looked over at him beseechingly. He had attracted a crowd of two or three interested helpers who, hissing Seeker be damned, had come to see the Amazing Chemist Nerd reformed. It didn't matter to the Seeker heir, so long as blushing boyscout didn't come back. They were definitely shocked to see he had such a nice body hidden under those lumpy clothes and were currently ogling his ass. Starscream swatted at the air.

"Buy them."

"What? The jeans? I can hardly feel my…" Skyfire gulped, not feeling like he needed to fill in that space. Starscream looked up at him, unimpressed.

"You weren't planning on having children."

"But I was planning on walking!" he balked. Every time he moved his legs, his pants _creaked_.

"Beauty hurts. Here's your pile." Starscream said without an ounce of pity, pointing over his shoulder at the clothes he had deemed worthy. "Cash register's over there."

"You are so pushy!" Skyfire managed at last, gaping over the pile of his clothes—half of which he hadn't even liked!

"I'm flattered you think so," he said to the side and held out a card. It stayed in the air near Skyfire's elbow, as if he should take it, when he realized it was Starscream's credit card. The chemist looked at it uncomprehendingly and Starscream finally sighed theatrically. "Fine, I'll walk you up there."

"You…"

"I'll take this one, since you won't be getting paid for this afternoon."

"Um… thanks," Skyfire said slowly as he took the pile, searching the other man's face for something—anything—but all he got was perfect, business-like flatness. Completely unreadable.

"Don't bother, I can write it off as a charitable donation to the fashionably impaired," Starscream drawled, and Skyfire was left wondering if he'd just been… _nice'd_, or if the verb even applied to Starscream. Wasn't there always some sort of ulterior motive with him?

As an end to the bizarre dream, the Seeker dropped him off at his house (he took the bus to the labs) fifteen minutes later. The sight of his house was like water to a dying man, he was so desperate to get back into an environment he understood. He thanked Starscream awkwardly and received a dismissive hand-gesture for his courtesy, while the Seeker's other hand tapped on the wheel as if he really had better things to do than wait for a huge man to pry himself out of his tiny car and could he _please_ get moving?

Too concentrated on juggling the huge back of insanely expensive clothes and struggling for his apartment keys, Skyfire didn't see the extra minute Starscream dallied at the corner, watching him walk away with something very like hopefulness in his face which only vanished when the door shut.

* * *

The next week, Skyfire ran out of something very important and Starscream wasn't answering his phone.

Going to the D-Con high-rise in person seemed like simple math at the time (he needed to get out of the lab anyways, going a little stir-crazy) but got more suspect the closer he got. He talked to the ground-level attendant, who directed him to the fiftieth floor. He left thanking her awkwardly, feeling horribly trapped by the dark marble of the D-Con building and the cold efficiency it seemed to radiate. He twiddled his thumbs in the elevator for fifty floors and got off, squinting at a roster of offices for Starscream's name before walking down the hallway.

He got to the door and then thought maybe, in a last-minute convulsion of nerves, that he should have called again. Should he call now, again? Was this the polite thing to do, accosting him at his place of work? He felt like he was intruding in some vital way that would infringe on whatever he and the Seeker had managed to forge in the way of friendship, and that nervousness led him to just throw his hands up and decide on a course: namely, pushing the door open without knocking.

He started to say Starscream's name, slouched low as if to disappear into the expensive carpet, but then he froze. In the back of the office, right in front of his desk, Starscream was being held at the wrists by an older man, their chests almost touching.

"I swear, this Saturday!" the Seeker said in a low voice, not quite a hiss and nearly a whisper.

"When I make a deal, Starscream, I expect both sides to be kept," the older man informed him softly, stonily, and it was almost like his hands twisted tighter around Starscream's thin white wrists, making his point. Starscream inched away, teeth grit.

"I know. It won't happen again, I—"

After drifting for a few breathless seconds, the office door hit the back wall with a dull, earth-shattering thump, making both suited men whirl towards the entrance where Skyfire half-crouched like a caught child.

Skyfire felt his face bleach, eviscerated by both businessmen's sharp eyes. It was only a moment he'd caught, just a split-second exchange, and the older man turned and let go of the Seeker so quickly that Skyfire couldn't help but think it was all a product of his imagination. It was almost like a turn-the-corner hallucination, poisonous and impossible. The only proof to the contrary was the burned, fearful look on Starscream's face when his superior turned; the silver-haired man's dignified stance, on the other hand, could not be doubted.

"I apologize. Are you scheduled for a meeting with my Second?"

"I'm—uh—"

"Yes. Yes, he is." Starscream grit out firmly, eyes blazing out of his pale face and into Skyfire's. That look told him to _stay still and don't speak for God's sake_. The Seeker's ugly urgency infected him, making his very skin itch. "It will only take a moment, President."

Megatron took a moment to deal his Second an appraising look, then crossed the office and stopped in front of Skyfire, who straightened nervously to his full height. The older man had to look up at him, but just an inch or two. It was obvious the man was not used to being forced to look up at all, but hid any possible discomfort expertly by offering his hand and a gracious smile.

"Very well. You will find that Starscream is the best at what he does. I pray you find our works to your liking and you may schedule a meeting with myself if you have any further questions."

The man's hand was like iron, heavy and hard and canceling out the smoothness of his words. He could feel the President taking in something about him, perhaps using the words as a distraction until he let go and flashed another charming smile. It sent a silver shiver down the chemist's back.

Skyfire felt himself shaking at the knees for some reason when Megatron—_Megatron_—passed behind him, but Starscream didn't give him time to quail. The Seeker stormed over and jerked him all the way inside and slammed the door after him, demanding what he wanted and what he thought he was doing there. The collected, conscientious scientist he talked with in his lab was gone, replaced by a shifty hyena who kept rubbing his wrists as if his employer had left some sort of mark on them.

It was his first hint that something wasn't right. For some awful reason, shocked and distracted by Starscream's mile-a-minute tirade that was intended to do just that, he never legitimately connected the bruises and the man. It just wasn't in him to make those kind of assumptions. He always hoped for the best in everyone, and that limited him sometimes: he'd yet to see how much.

Just as the silver-haired entrepreneur probably intended, the incident in the office faded to the back of Skyfire's mind with relative quickness; Starscream didn't mention it and it just confused him when he thought back on it. That Wednesday, after a casual mention of hunger led Starscream to take initiative and push him out to get _good_ food before he could order in the fake Chinese he was so fond of, the two old lab partners sat at a glassed-in café in downtown Detroit, talking further over paninis and chai that Starscream had paid for with a dismissive flick of his credit-card. Sitting there with the Seeker, Skyfire himself was amazed at how well they clicked after so long apart—and how, indeed, they managed to click at all considering their history. He was bowled over again and again by how intensely brilliant Starscream was underneath all those personality thorns; how ardently they discussed findings.

It was genuinely pleasant, almost like an outing with a coworker he enjoyed or a friend he hadn't seen in a long time, of which Starscream was neither. More like a new friend, and even that was shaky. Still, it was unexpectedly nice.

It remained nice until, caught mid-bite, Skyfire looked over from laughing at something Starscream had not intended to say to see a tall man with tousled blond hair, a sweat-suit and blank blue sunglasses slouching at the table nearby, watching them with a pleasant half-smile.


	49. Center

A/N: Starscream needs to stop smoking crack before bed. Seriously. Real version on AFFnet.

_Characters: Skyfire, Starscream_

_Pairings: Starscream/Skyfire_

_Warnings: Sexual content, language, wishful thinking, gratuitous AU nods_

* * *

Center

* * *

It was only a matter of time before their hands crossed again.

When they did, both men reaching for the same epindorph pipette, Starscream looked up from the spread of bottles and vials to find Skyfire staring at him with an expression so intense it shook him to his bones. It had nothing to do with science and yet lit his handsome face up in the same way: it was interest, hope, doubt and passion all at once. It mirrored the tide cresting in Starscream, equal parts urgency and anxiety.

Not knowing why, he gripped Skyfire's wrist, feeling only the bulk of him through the chemical gloves, and was instantly rewarded.

"S-starscream."

Skyfire managed to turn and genuinely grab him by the waist, arm shaking slightly as he clumsily pulled the shorter man closer. They were locked together, chest to chest, with the chemist's chin barely touching his temple. The faint scratch of Skyfire's lab coat over his broad chest and the smell of his cologne made the Seeker moan out of nothing more than nerves and pure want: it pulsed out of him almost painfully after weeks of exhaustive hope and crushing restraint, neither of which he had ever experienced.

It was wonderful to hear the anxious breath above him and have his chin led up. Skyfire's breath played on his parted lips for a trembling moment before the chemist kissed him, the sweet, hesitant sensation fairly sending him to his knees. Starscream pressed back, cupping the big man's chin and carefully deepening the kiss—possibly to ensure that he stayed put, and he did. He stayed and bent further, shyly returning the slow, shifting kiss in a way that, against all logic, made Starscream's toes curl viciously.

It was not the first time he had kissed Skyfire, but this was the first time Skyfire had kissed _him_, and the difference was otherworldly. He could feel the silent want and unsurety in every movement. He could feel the other man _caring_ about this. It was radiating through his very fingertips. He could feel something intrinsically, sweetly Skyfire that he had been waiting for for weeks upon weeks, finally in his hands.

That, of course, was as far as his wonder went.

The moment their tongues met, they fell against each other and the next sound was breaking glass. Starscream reached backwards and shoved Skyfire's life work off of the counter, hands already busy with Skyfire's damnable polo as the bigger man lifted him onto the cleared surface, face rosy. Starscream hissed to feel Skyfire's fingers fumbling with his belt, scraping over the front of his filling slacks.

Once they peeled the polo off and tossed it to the floor, Skyfire's chest was warm and firm; he had been going to the gym. The Seeker dragged his fingers down his chest with relish and the hushed intake of breath when he pinched the older man's nipple made Starscream smile into his neck. He loved the feeling of Skyfire's big fingers digging into his back in response to pleasure. He was just so… reactive.

He kissed the big man fiercely, reveling in the softness of his mouth and his stumbling eagerness. He hooked a leg around his waist so he could roll against Skyfire's thigh as he played with his chest-wanting to take his time, at least for a little while, and to ensure that Skyfire came back again and again. Skyfire jerked away once, again with his hands groping for Starscream's, then drew back completely, fair head bowed. Starscream, stymied, was about to yank him back when he realized why Skyfire was looking downwards with such confusion on his handsome face.

The pale plane of Skyfire's naked chest was scored with red scratches so deep as to be unreal, all in sets of four. Starscream, feeling a stifled thrill of panic cleave through him, looked down at his nails. Each one was tipped in blood.

"You're hurting me," Skyfire said softly, uncomprehendingly. As if he couldn't imagine how anyone would want to hurt anyone else, ever. He swiped his hand over one, fingertips coated in slick blood, and looked at it like it was a curiosity.

"I know," was all Starscream could say, and reached for him again. If he didn't get Skyfire close again, he would _find out_ and leave, so it only doubled his fear when the chemist took a step back.

"Do you _want_ to cut me?"

"No, idiot, I just—"

"Just retract them," Skyfire said, like it was simple.

"I can't!" Starscream burst out, voice suddenly shrill. "I need them! It's—it's the way I was taught!"

He knew his own chest was scored with the same marks, he just couldn't bear to look down. He covered the wound with the weapon, gritting his teeth. He just needed Skyfire to help him forget for the moment, help take away the sting—and there Skyfire was, arms around him.

His cheek went into the big man's neck and, so carefully, he pawed up and down the chemist's thick arms, feeling his breathing slow to match Skyfire's steady, calming heartbeat. He felt cradled, safe. Hardly knew the feeling, but something bigger than himself told him what it was.

"I hope you learn to. I hope you learn to, one day."

Starscream, not listening, craned up and kissed him again and the heat was back right where it was supposed to be. Spurred, they rustled and tore at clothing, aiming to get as much of their naked skin pressed together as possible. At last, Skyfire pulled off his shoes and slacks and pulled Starscream to the edge of the counter; Starscream locked his arms around the chemist's shoulders and crushed his mouth to his, sucking and biting and shaking feverishly to feel Skyfire, thick and rigid, pressed between his bare thighs.

"Please," he swore against his lips, hardly recognizing his own voice for the desperation in it. "Oh Christ, please, Skyfire."

Five minutes or ten minutes or an hour later, Skyfire took a final deep breath, put his cheek against Starscream's shoulder and leaned there like a child, face dripping, eyes closed.

"How was that for the best sex of your life?" he whispered after his skin wasn't pink anymore and he could breathe again. He expected a sheepish laugh and perhaps a clumsy kiss; there was nothing but quietness from beneath his chin. The Seeker looked down and Skyfire was practically twiddling his thumbs together, looking off to the right like he'd just been asked something uncomfortable.

Starscream, even with every bit of his body smiling, got somehow angry, because it was _true_, but Skyfire didn't seem happy about it. About what had just happened, any of it.

"That was the best sex of your _life_."

"That was… nice," Skyfire admitted, running a hand through his light hair, suddenly turned roguish and unruly and _sexy_ by sweat.

"_Nice_?" Starscream repeated harshly.

"Yes, nice—er, great, honestly, but I just don't want that. _Just_ that, I mean," Skyfire said softly, almost embarrassed as Starscream's incredulous look turned to an incredulous glare. He took a deep breath. "I want… this."

Hesitantly, under Starscream's sharp eyes, Skyfire reached up and pushed gently at the naked space just underneath Starscream's collarbone. Carefully, he nudged the skin outward with his fingertips. It just felt like a little prodding or stretching, useless and vaguely irritating, until something _clicked_ and Starscream's sternum split painlessly in half—or something entirely different split, something geometrical and designed with this clean alien click in mind.

Suddenly rigid and cold in panic, Starscream looked down to see a glow emitting from his chest, a dusky red from a perfect grey square depression where his red wet heart was supposed to be. Where was the blood?

Through the glow, he saw Skyfire open his own chest with a gentle touch: his was a blue, his center. A light, dazzling sky-blue. Immediately, seeing that light, Starscream froze up and covered his gaping chest, hissing the first thing he could think of.

"You can't have it! It's mine!"

It was true, wasn't it? It was his. No one else could have it.

A prickle of covetousness and—yes, indescribable fear seized him. It wasn't so much at the thought of having his chest _forced_ open, but at having another light even _close_ to his. If he could take a key and lock this new (old, timeless) thing away, he would for forever. No one would ever touch it and ever see it.

"I don't want to take it," Skyfire reassured him, slowly and gently as if speaking to a child. "I want to share it."

Skyfire looked up at him with a sad expression, pure even as he stood naked and wet before the Seeker. The flush and the nakedness seemed Starscream's fault now—some kind of stain on Skyfire, something forced where it wasn't wanted or needed. Skyfire reached for his hand, prying his arm away from the light and twining their fingers together. Skyfire looked at him like he _understood_, and that alone made the older man—his only friend-indescribably sad.

"Don't you know there's more than this, Starscream?"

Skyfire's hand was outlined against the dull blur of his Spark for a moment before it went _in_ and Starscream woke up with a (burst of red light) gasp, white body sweating and tingling in his silk sheets.


	50. Avarice

A/N: Ohh g-g-g-g-god Starscream why. Why.

One of my favorites, still. Probly 'cos I'm a sadistic ho-face. Yep.

_Characters: Starscream, Megatron, Skyfire_

_Pairings: legitimate MegatronxStarscreamxSkyfire ohnooooo_

_Warnings: Megatron bein' a jealous ho plus SEVERE sadness._

* * *

Avarice

* * *

Within the next twenty-four hours, Skyfire was standing in front of Megatron's desk, watching the older man stand at one of his full-length windows, wide Herculean back to him.

"Starscream speaks of you in high regard," Megatron said at last, his tone unreadable but stung with a faint undertone of disbelief.

Skyfire was stunned to be in the President's luxurious office at all and was actually a mess behind his square-framed glasses. He had spent all fifty-four floors in the elevator carding through every last action within the past week that could have warranted such a sudden summons, so any and all inflection was lost on him. The wide-eyed chemist barely began to think about what he said—mostly about how rarely anyone made it into Starscream's _middle_ regard—when he was interrupted.

"What is your relation to him?"

"We are… classmates," Skyfire offered haltingly, not knowing what the other man was looking for. A hard grey glance over Megatron's shoulder told him it wasn't enough, so he searched for more definitions, surprising himself with the one he came up with. "Friends. Nothing else."

He didn't know why… but there was something in the older man's expression that prompted him to add on the last qualifier. It was the same thing that made him spread his hands almost pleadingly, even as Megatron's eyes were once more pinned on the midday chrome ruckus of Detroit.

"Nothing more," the President repeated, _specified_. The sudden darkness in his tone and chiseled face was almost unfathomable. Skyfire couldn't even nod, still waiting somewhere in his sanest place for an inquiry into his progress on the petroleum product, his output, anything. After another tense pause, Megatron knotted his big hands behind his back and nodded down at the city.

"You are dismissed."

Fifty-four floors seemed too high to go for this. Skyfire had never been _dismissed_ before, like a servant from a lord. He turned in the silent office, neck prickling under the weight of absolute authority in the air, in his throat. Two steps and the man's iron voice once again staked Skyfire to the carpet under his loafers.

"If I find that this… state of distraction worsens or continues to impede his performance here, you will lose your impromptu assistant." Megatron's lip curled, derision greasing his every rigid line. "A fraternity moron could do what you are making him do."

When Skyfire swallowed and opened his mouth, there was only one thing to say. The only thing, he realized, anyone had ever said to Megatron.

"Yes, sir."

He shut the door behind him.

* * *

A few days later, Skyfire was still mostly in shock.

The parts of himself he managed to rescue from his own disbelief and anxiety were the ones that kept his hands moving, which he was intensely grateful for. He could still think so he could still work, so he worked day and night until it was Wednesday. Wednesday meant Starscream, but that only made him remember how displeased Megatron seemed that his Second was working there. The very thought made him nervous.

More… frightening, Skyfire supposed was the word, was how suddenly Megatron noted his very existence. It was like something had changed and the only thing he could name was their brush in Starscream's office—the very first time he had seen Megatron in the flesh. That only led to more questions (Megatron was a busy man, but surely he knew Starscream had hired him for this project? Was his old lab partner keeping something from him or Megatron or both of them, perhaps about the nature of his employment?), but they were shallow and self-centered. Perhaps he only asked them to avoid the crush of the bigger mysteries, like Starscream's bruises from so long ago.

The possessiveness in Megatron's posture and voice and vocabulary when he spoke of his Second. What he had been summoned for and, earlier, what he had walked in on.

With the Seeker next to him, conspicuously silent like he had no idea what had happened, Skyfire couldn't help but weigh his words as carefully as—more carefully than—his reactants. He shuffled around the lab, avoiding his old partner's eye and wondering, painfully, how much he should assume this even involved him at all. He weighed and rephrased and softened until Starscream accidentally elbowed him and he simply said it.

"If he's… being unprofessional around you, there are people you can go to."

For a moment, the Seeker heir just continued what he was doing: painstakingly adjusting the heat on a hot-plate.

"Don't be an idiot," Starscream snapped when it was perfect, voice low and impatient. It was the first time his tone had harshened in the lab for weeks, and the only time it did was when Megatron was mentioned. It was the same transformation after Skyfire had caught the two of them in the office: arrogant yet content to defensive and cagey. With the concept of Megatron prying under the cool, calm skin Skyfire's lab afforded him, Starscream absolutely soured, hands clawed.

"I mean it."

"And you think I'm joking? It would be a fly in his soup. After a brief and utterly polite legal tussle, he'll have the charges dismissed, then fire you and murder me. Or simply drop us both off a bridge," Starscream sniffed. Skyfire opened his mouth as if to protest, doused by a look from Starscream's dark, shrewd eyes. "It wouldn't matter if the mayor were rowing by in a fucking gondola, he would still get away with it. Don't think you can topple something as large as him."

That managed to shut the chemist's mouth, because it was just what Skyfire was afraid of. Megatron was the President of D-Con industries, the lifeblood of Detroit: his pull went beyond pedestrian scope and that might include things beyond the law. Especially with the reputation that followed him everywhere like a particularly well-spoken manservant (no matter how it clashed with the quiet, disturbingly _angry_ man who had summoned him) it was almost heresy to accuse him of anything but skimping on charity donations.

Skyfire was having a hard time getting his mind around the concept in the first place (he felt inestimably _small_ next to Megatron), but something in Starscream's tone struck him enough to make him abandon long-term repercussions and politics. He put down the vial in his hands and looked at his old lab partner, eyes worried behind his thick glasses.

"You're afraid of him."

"You would be a fool not to be," Starscream said quietly, eyes fixed on the solution in his hand as he gently agitated it. The air of the lab seemed to thicken with that confession, so long overdue, but the Seeker's thin lip stiffened. "But I'm going to get rid of him. Take his place."

The surety in the Seeker heir's voice should have given him hope, but it sounded strangely hollow. Like a mantra repeated too many times to mean anything anymore. Skyfire shifted uncomfortably, trying to imagine Starscream in a grey suit. Tried to imagine him with all that power, and came out of it feeling half as sure as he did before. Hope didn't even apply anymore.

"You'll… make things different for the people who work there," Skyfire offered, stunned when Starscream threw him an incredulous glance.

"What? Of course not. They have to fear me as they feared him."

"Then… what's the point?"

Starscream, in his second year of attempting to topple Megatron through hellfire and personal pain and questions of his very sanity, found he couldn't answer that question with Skyfire staring at him because the phrase 'I'll do it better than he did' simply seemed pointless. In the resulting silence, he just shut his mouth and made a 'you idiot' noise, which usually worked well enough with Skyfire. Thus dismissed, the taller man went back to work, but still gave him glances that hung on his neck like dew: enough of them and something would drip down his back and make him shiver.

They worked in silence for a while: the wasteland their short conversation had left behind. Skyfire tried to imagine being deathly afraid of your own boss, and couldn't imagine it would contribute to a healthy work environment. Yes, he had been unnerved about Starscream, at first, but Megatron was different in person than the urbane, smiling gentleman on news specials. He was cold intimidation smelted into a human male. No wonder Starscream was so on-edge all the time, considering the competitive nature of their business. Surely it was that. Mostly that.

Unable to get rid of the image of Starscream's bloodless face behind the iron ridge of Megatron's shoulder, thin white wrists wrapped in his huge hands, Skyfire looked for something to say and finally settled for what he knew to be true.

"I'll help you, if you need it."

He didn't know quite what he was offering, and that was perhaps the beauty of it: he still meant it. He meant it with all of him. If Starscream needed help—real help—he would be there.

The Starscream he knew in Iacon would have been the first to snap that he didn't _need_ your help, but his old lab partner merely looked at him with the strangest expression and went back to what he was doing, hiding in his bottles.

Then they reached for the same pipette and suddenly Starscream's hand was clawed around his wrist.

He jumped at the sudden movement, looking at the Seeker blankly as Starscream stared back, looking for _something_ in his face or expression. All Skyfire, stupidly, could really think about was the sharpness of his nails, but then Starscream looked at the floor and took one step forward, then another. They were almost close enough to brush noses when Starscream stopped, breathing in something in the air or something about _him_, leaving Skyfire mystified from the almost palpable shift of air.

"I'm sorry," the Seeker said at last, through his teeth. He grimaced at the floor. "About…"

Starscream swallowed and bit at his lip before looking up, trying to communicate something to the older man with his eyes. Skyfire stared back, painfully lost, because it was far too big an apology for a simple startle or anything that had occurred in the lab. But add in the hand on his wrist, the desperate tightness of his fingers, and Skyfire finally realized Starscream was apologizing to him for something else. Something, maybe, that happened a long time ago and he never had a chance to make up for.

Looking into Starscream's handsome, twisted face, he saw regret. Regret and sorrow for treating him like trash, using him for homework, and finally for using him for everything else. It was probably—make that definitely—the first time the Seeker had apologized to anyone of his own volition. Apologized, and meant it.

Suddenly, the chemist couldn't quite breathe, afraid of upsetting what was hanging in the warm air between them. Skyfire ducked his head slightly and put his hand to his forehead, jostling his goggles almost nervously.

"It's alright. We were… different people, then," he mumbled, skin prickling. It was an old line, and stupid. When he realized he actually meant it, Skyfire smiled weakly and found another. "It's in the past, right?"

Starscream's open, awful expression twisted, turning almost scathing and then easing into something far more curious as he continued to study Skyfire and realized what the bigger man already had: he was speaking the truth. He truly held no ill will towards him for their Iacon days. He let go of Skyfire's wrist and had barely turned back to his work before fixing him with another intense stare.

"How can you manage that?" he asked sharply.

"What?" Skyfire asked, stymied for the fifth time. His brain was starting to legitimately hurt from so many blasts of anxiety.

"Being so… forgiving," Starscream muttered, the word apparently alien to him.

"I've led kind of a blessed life, I guess," the chemist said when he found his voice, sweetening the vague sentence with a warm smile. "I've had no reason to keep grudges. As hard as I worked, I always had mom and dad behind me, you know? They would always help when I needed it. Advice and things. They always told me that forgiveness was the best policy, because keeping grudges just hurts you internally."

He realized too late that he was preaching and bit his lip, not wanting to stretch out or distort whatever had let Starscream open up to him briefly. The sheer fact he had admitted that his behavior at Iacon was worthy of an apology was… staggering and it still hadn't quite set in. He realized he had been waiting all this time for it and never expected to get it: now, there was a bridge between he and Starscream that plainly mystified him and he didn't know what to do with it. Skyfire was intent on letting the newly mixed solutions bubble in silence but Starscream, surprisingly, spoke up.

"They taught you that. Your parents."

"You know, just… treat others like you want to be treated," he offered, shrugging slightly. "Hasn't anyone ever told you that?"

"No," Starscream said, voice low and blank. "My lesson was to treat others with regard to what you can get from them."

Struck, Skyfire looked over, mouth open. Starscream did not return the look, glazed eyes fixed on the solution he was dehydrating until the flame seemed to half-invade his dark stare. In his eyes shifted a molten mesh of sadness and anger and refusal to feel—fear of—both.

"That's terrible," Skyfire said without thinking, big chest suddenly hollow as a drum.

"That's the way I was taught," Starscream said quietly, finally looking over at Skyfire with a blank expression that was somehow pleading and angry and sad and resigned all at once. "And old lessons are hard to shake."

In that look, Skyfire saw everything.

It was like his chest had been hollowed out just so that note—that moment and confession-could resound inside it, shaking and awful and life-long. He had to think about how Starscream had grown up, but it wasn't thinking because that look told him: alone, painstakingly trained and awarded only the most damaging of preferences. Everything made sense. His every sneer, his every flinch. All at once, the chemist felt the tangible void that had clustered around Starscream since Iacon, keeping tools close and _people_ away.

Skyfire, fundamentally overcome with how starved for true connection Starscream was, couldn't stop himself and didn't see any need to. He reached out to the barricaded, poisoned soul in front of him. He intended just to put his arm over his shoulders, but Starscream, face twisting, grabbed onto the tiniest lure of comfort and pressed into his big chest, shaking silently. His gloved hands knotted into his lab-coat, breath hissing through his nose as years of mental and emotional abuse crested under his skin and his shields.

Not knowing what else to do, Skyfire held him. His nose pressed to the Seeker's damp forehead, eyes closing as the whispers of the shockwaves in his old lab partner sent tremors through his bones. His heart broke for someone who had never had anything given freely before; who had to fight, tooth and nail, or beg on his knees for anything he received. Either a master or a slave. No compromise and no rest, except for this small moment, which he thanked god he was there to give to Starscream.

But when Starscream drew away, the Seeker heir moved upwards and kissed him on the lips, gloved hand rubbery against his thick neck. Skyfire went numb down to his feet. After a long, long moment, their mouths parted.

Starscream stayed within the circle of his suddenly weak arms long enough to see Skyfire's agonized expression and the beginning of the words '_I'm not_' before he turned and ran from the lab, cursing thickly into his lab-sleeve. The door slammed and left Skyfire painfully lost, his big arms still open.

Up in the corner of the ceiling, the videotape recorded on and on and on, all images soon to be reflected in the grey eyes of a jealous man.


	51. Settle In

A/N: This is me, cruelly prolonging a cliffhanger like the rat I am (no, really, time needs to pass a little, promise). I give you long-overdue random Project happenings: in which Bee starts to grow up, and OP starts to understand. I know I'm over-doing Arcee's cuteness, but in a house full of stinky men, I can't frikkin help it.

_Characters: Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Arcee, mentioned Sari, mentioned Red Alert_

Pairings: half-implied Ratchet/RedAlert

_Warnings: language. And Bee-OP bonding just makes my guts turn to goo._

* * *

Settle In

* * *

"You sit your butt down and eat, missy, I can get my own," Ratchet growled over his newspaper, giving Arcee a surly glance.

"Oh, please let me get them for you. I'm already on my feet," the small girl protested, running her hand over his broad saddle-shoulders as she passed. She flashed him a quick, sweet smile that explained why the older man stayed seated: not through any resemblance of an obliging nature, but the simple fact that his knees had been turned to goo by that look.

Optimus smiled. Ratchet had become a bit more… tame since Arcee had come to live with them. It was undeniably funny to see his crusty nature crumple so quickly when faced with as little as a gesture from the child, but the Prime knew this was exactly what Ratchet needed. He looked up, tapping his plate with his fork.

"These are wonderful, Arcee."

She had stopped blushing painfully every time Optimus looked at her, but still had the habit of ducking her head and playing with her curls whenever he spoke to her. As her hands were occupied, the young girl settled for hiding her face behind the next stack of pancakes she ferried to the table, an explosively adorable pink apron over her front.

"Th-thank you. Red Alert taught me to make them."

Both she and Optimus looked up at a gagging noise, then watched worriedly as Ratchet pounded himself in the chest and choked in a thoroughly alarmingly fashion.

Red Alert was the retired nurse who worked at the orphanage. She was a very attractive lady with snow-white blond hair and a pretty red mouth as suited for sharp comments as smiles. It was assumed the two older medics knew each other, though no one was sure in what way. Surely they must have brushed elbows in the process of getting Arcee adopted, or even beforehand.

Optimus arched a brow, watching his mentor carefully with his fork half-way to his mouth.

"How is, uh… How is Red?" Ratchet irked out at last, teeth glued together.

"She's doing well. I talk to her all the time!"

Ratchet made another vague choking sound, retreating further behind his newspaper and into his pitbull shoulders.

"Huh. That so."

"And I invited her over for dinner this week."

"_What_?"

The sudden crumple of newspaper spooked them both, but Ratchet's utterly aghast face was not expected. He stared at the small girl like she had just told him she would be out all night with a boy. Arcee giggled like she _knew_ something and went back to merrily pulling pancakes onto her adoptive father's plate, curls bouncing. Optimus caught the paramedic's eye and gave him a curious look, which forced the older man to grumble and rectify the situation of his syrup-smeared and very abused newspaper.

Unseen by all, a yellow blur took advantage of the distraction to whip by the table, ruffling the napkins in the cross-breeze. Screeching to a stop, Bee whooped to find the counter full of steaming breakfast food, a look of whistling innocence on his face as he turned and piled his plate high with about fifteen pancakes.

"Man, these smell awesome. Did you do these, Arcee?"

Arcee nodded, smile disappearing the moment she looked around the tiny concrete kitchen.

"But where's Bulkhead?"

"Hiding in his room," Ratchet smirked to himself.

He had an eye on Arcee every waking moment, true, and his greatest fear was that she would get a crush on the reject, Bumblebee, but even an idiot could see how the bigger teen jittered and couldn't get a sentence out whenever the small girl was around. She seemed to be fully unaware of the cell-level chaos she produced in Bulkhead, and nearly made him pass out by offering to pose for a portrait he was doing for art class.

It happened to be a nude portrait, which she wasn't aware of, but once vengeful glance from Ratchet made the older man sure Bulkhead was going to be in hibernation for at least the next week.

"Is he sick? He's been in his room so much lately," she said softly, one small hand to her mouth.

"Why don't you go and check on him? I'm sure he could use the company," Optimus suggested, countering Ratchet's huffy stare with a content quirk of his brow. "Maybe he would appreciate some pancakes, too."

Arcee nodded and bounced off smiling in her little pink apron, leaving both men wondering how someone could physically be so cute without combusting into little strands of confetti and heart-cutouts. It just wasn't _right_. After a minute, Ratchet got up and plucked his napkin from his collar with a sour look, muttering something about chaperoning as he trundled to the bedroom area. It left Optimus alone with his cousin, who was still at the counter, perfecting his mountain of food.

"Hey, uh, what's that on the table, OP?"

"Huh?" Optimus said through a mouth of pancakes, then looked around while chewing vigorously.

A stapled handful of papers was, indeed, sitting on the table. He didn't know how he hadn't noticed it before, seeing as there was a big red B-minus drawn in sharpie on the top right corner. He picked it up curiously.

"Looks like Bulkhead left a paper in the kitchen."

"How do you know it's Bulkhead's?" Bee asked in an odd, taunting tone of voice, which still failed to distract Optimus from the utter orgasm of pancake in his mouth. The Prime squinted at it, then put it down.

"Yeah, it's his. B for Bulkhead."

"No, B for Bumblebee!"

Optimus dropped his fork with a splitting clang.

"You made a B on a report?" Optimus swallowed with an audible and painful gulping noise and screeched his chair around. He faced Bumblebee, who was assuming a very confident cool-man repose. "Bee, I'm so proud of you!"

"Aw, dude. _Dude_, OP. You just freakin'—you ruined the moment!" Bee groaned loudly, slouching so instantly it was like all the bones had been sucked out of him. The disintegration left him a heavily disappointed bag of organs. "You were _supposed_ to say something like _dude_ that's _awesome_, kick ass and take names! Not pull that I'm-so-proud parent-shtick!"

Optimus blinked at his cousin for a second, smacked off-guard once more by Bee's strict guidelines for male-male interaction, then shook his head.

"Well, I think it's… kick-ass, regardless." The older officer smiled back at the approving little smirk Bee gave him. He tapped the report, B-minus blazing proudly in red ink. "You did good."

"Well, duh! Of course I did! I actually read the book this time!" Bee preened, scooping his plate off the counter and sliding into a free chair, pile of pancakes so tall they nearly blocked his face. He faced them down with an eager grin. "If I keep going like this, I can slide into the entrance test no problem!"

"Entrance examination?" Optimus repeated blankly, feeling as though he was looking at a whole new person.

Not only had Bee never mentioned anything to do with tests without anything less than a full-body convulsion, the young man had less direction than a oak seed. Constantly twirling, with no end goal. Bee had had brief fantasies about becoming a professional videogame player and a rapper, nothing more. To say Optimus had worried would be an understatement, but he also managed to keep it to himself most of the time, hoping things would shape up one day. He just wasn't expecting it to happen _that day_, nor in one concise exchange.

Wondering what had changed in the middle of the night, the Prime watched almost warily as Bee scuffed at the concrete floor and pulled his beanie off to scratch at his unkempt blond hair. No amount of shyness, however, could have prepared him for what his little cousin said next.

"I was thinking of… maybe being a police officer," Bee mumbled, blue eyes flicking up before returning to his stack of pancakes. "Like you."

Optimus' first urge was to get out of his chair and hug him, to crush him and say how _fucking_ proud he was, but even the addition of the curse-word wouldn't have kept Bee from running from the room as fast as possible. Therefore, the Prime kept himself in his chair: as a result, his heart beat like a wild thing with the power of restraining himself, swollen with the sudden potential of the young scrub sitting in front of him, pouring a galleon of syrup on his breakfast.

"I think that's a pretty cool idea," Optimus said mildly when he found his voice. He reached over and picked up Ratchet's discarded newspaper, opening it up. "You know I can get you an internship, if you really think you want to. It's a whole lot of paper-running and getting coffee, but it'll help you get to know the officers."

"It's not like I'm not used to it," Bee snorted, shoving an entire pancake in his mouth. "You guys should've started paying Blurr and me like a millennia ago."

"Mm," his cousin allowed, not inclined to ruin the moment by pointing out the obvious fact that Bee and his best friend usually mixed up more papers than delivered them.

They sat in silence as Bee bolted down his breakfast, ripping into bacon-strips and gulping down three glasses of orange juice before getting up with a screech of his chair. Without another word (or a washed plate, but Optimus couldn't hope for too much from this whole growing-up-in-one-day thing), Bee ran to the front door and grabbed his skateboard, flipping it impressively under his arm. Optimus looked back, one arm over the back of his chair, smile seemingly permanently fused to his handsome face.

"Where are you going?"

"To go meet Sari," Bee answered, one hand on the door. He grinned. "Blurr's passed his physical test doohickey and he's clear to walk, so we're gonna go pick him up and go skating."

Optimus smile widened, if that was possible. No one had any idea how much ease it gave him to hear Sari's name in such a relaxed tone, or hear that Blurr was back on his feet. He gave his cousin a clumsy thumbs-up.

"Radical."

Bee looked back at him and rolled his eyes with a certain smirking, awkward thankfulness and Optimus winked. After future scout Bumblebee of the Detroit Police Department ducked out the door with a dull clang and took to the sidewalks, the Prime sat back and swirled the last piece of pancake in the pool of syrup. He regarded it with some wonder before popping it in his mouth.

Thus dawned a new age, where pancakes and B minuses were the angels of good fortune and young men could learn to forgive and old men could learn to love. Now all that was left was figuring out how he was going to change.


	52. Family II

A/N: Ah, Starscream. You've been ignoring your greatest resource for so long. God, I love these sibling interactions.

Man, can I date Slipstream? Please? She's just awesome. (And don't worry, four chapters left in the arc, everything will be addressed).

_Characters: Starscream, Slipstream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, a bit Megatron-centric_

_Pairings: implied StarscreamxSkyfire and MegatronxStarscream_

_Warnings: language_

* * *

Family

* * *

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"If I had a nickel every time I heard that," Starscream began exasperatedly, feeling the circles underneath his eyes like barbells. He looked at the three packets of creamer he had thus far failed to properly open and threw his sister a sullen glare, hoisting his coffee cup up. "As of now, I'm getting coffee. When I'm done, I plan to take a brief visit to the men's room and continue to my office for some busy-work. Would you like an update when I file my next report?"

Slipstream's cold purple mouth didn't budge an inch, even to tell him he was an idiot. Her sharp eyes stayed locked on him, drilling dark and threatening like she could boil him alive underneath his white skin by sheer willpower. Very slowly, he became aware that this glare meant something that wasn't their normal sibling practice of detesting each other's very breaths.

"What?" he said at last, his own eyes flicking aside warily as he took a step closer to her.

"Megatron had just informed me he's busy this coming Saturday. Seven to nine," she informed him after a long silence, voice icy. Starscream started to open his mouth but his sister yanked at his suit jacket, baring her teeth in his face. "_Why_ haven't you ended it, you imbecile?"

"He won't _let_ me," Starscream hissed, throwing her arm off of him and brushing himself off. It would have been routine, but the movement was too sharp and jittery, as was his expression when he looked over his shoulder towards the door to the break-room and ducked his head. "I've oh-so respectfully asked to meet with him no less than three times and each time there's some sort of emergency meeting I wasn't aware of. It's almost like he knows what I'm going to say — or he's _scheming_ something."

Starscream's surly expression clearly said he was used to being the one scheming things and this apparent role-reversal didn't please him in the slightest. He appeared too tired to care about much else, but his sister froze down to her boots, hands locking atop her crossed arms.

"He knows."

"Knows _what_?" the Seeker heir said irritably, mixing in another packet of sugar with sloppy jerks of his wrist.

"About your scientist," she said, as though he were an idiot.

"What is there to _know_?" he said sharply, keeping his eyes on his drink. "I work with him and occasionally buy his clothes! No, I'm not having this conversation with you. Megatron has absolutely no evidence of…"

Not knowing what he was going to say, he shook his head grimly and tried to ignore the violent dip of his gut.

"Anything. He has no evidence of anything."

Or so he prayed.

"You think he's a man who needs anything other than his own gut instinct? You need to stop this, Starscream, no matter the cost. To him, an opportunity is as good as outright agreement. Stop dragging your goddamn high-heeled feet. Have you even spoken with Thundercracker yet?" she demanded suddenly, eyes going from smoldering to blazing again when Starscream hid behind his hand. Caught, her little brother gestured angrily at the air.

"I _tried_!"

"Well try harder!"

"I stopped him to speak with him just an hour ago and he said he wasn't interested in any of my schemes!" he half-whined, cheeks going splotchy. "And I wasn't going to chase him down the hall!"

Slipstream rolled her eyes, entire body going slack for a minute with the force of her disbelief. As intelligent as she knew he was, even she wouldn't have thought her brother thought it was at all acceptable to approach his triplet in the workplace when it had long been his arena for business and _only_ business. Starscream reached defensively for his severely over-doctored coffee and his sister slapped his hand away from it, meeting his ire straight on with a paint-peeling scowl.

"Try. _Harder_. He has a home, though you may have forgotten where it is," Slipstream grit out, purple-painted lips curled. "I hope you've internalized this little update on how people see you."

"I am more than just a scheming bastard!" Starscream burst out angrily, reaching with equal fury for something on the coffee counter. Instead, he knocked over his coffee cup with a shrieked curse and an instant grab at his scalded hand. The murky drink flooded the counter, water-falling down the front of it and splattering his pants. Slipstream watched him hiss and stomp at the marble floor with a dispassionate eye, finally pinching the bridge of her hooked nose.

"I don't know if bitch is an upgrade from bastard, but you might be right," she said dryly. Then she sighed, looking a little defeated and miserable for him. She kneaded at her temples. "Well, think of it this way. You can keep seeing your scientist a little while longer, even if it costs you your life."

"He's not mine," Starscream snapped before he could stop himself: the sharp, hurt tone was similarly involuntary, daggering out of his aching chest and not his burnt hand.

It was just yesterday. When he was stupid enough to kiss Skyfire and the idiot hadn't needed to say more than two words to get the message across. _No_.

His disappointment was so huge it hadn't even hit him yet, but it was hung across his back, waiting for an opportunity to slip into a crack in his schedule or sanity and there were so many cracks in the latter. He'd lost Skyfire and he hadn't even had him. It wasn't even just the sting of being refused, even though no one had ever refused him before. Ever.

He really hadn't brushed away the danger that Megatron might _know_ about Skyfire. It was just that the thought of Megatron being involved in any way with Skyfire was simply too much to think about. He had to get out of the deal and face Skyfire, then he would deal with any life-threatening situations… whether they threatened Skyfire's or his own.

"He told you, then."

Starscream looked over, confused. Slipstream frowned slightly, twirling her finger in the air.

"The chemist. Or you tried to come onto him and he turned you down."

"Would you stop being so goddamn blasé about all of this?" Starscream snarled when he realized what she was talking about, hackles rising that once again she managed to _know_ him so well. Did she have no other lure in her life but watching him crash and burn and narrating as he did so? He huffed and glared and fussed with his spilled coffee, soaking it up with an unruly lump of napkins he'd ripped out of the dispenser, then gave her an aside glance that was almost accusatory.

"You knew he was straight?"

"I hoped he was, since he was wearing socks with his loafers," she admitted, brushing her curls from her face. She let the silence rest for a minute, tapping her turquoise nails on her arm and studying Starscream's unhappy face as he finished cleaning up his mess — possibly for the first time in his life. She looked almost sad as she leaned against the wall, asking, "Why him?"

"Hell if I know," Starscream muttered honestly, carding through the papers he'd set aside and checking to see if they had gotten splashed by the coffee.

Why Skyfire? It couldn't have been just for the conversation, although it was some of the best Starscream had ever had. There was just something about him that drew him in, trapped him. With every little habit and word and chuckle and new lameness, Skyfire made him weak in the knees and that alone was confounding to the Seeker.

Christ, he had never felt a _pull_ towards anyone. He had always orchestrated every step of every affair he'd ever had and never stumbled, the very gravity of attraction at his command. Normally it was him standing still and reeling the other person toward him, but even with Megatron, he had at least known enough to plan out a path to be dragged down; known _why_ he was attracted to the older man like a bug was to a zapper. But Skyfire cruelly caught him off-guard, lulled him into a false sense of security with his idiotic socks and his loafers and then made him fall into his chest — or desperately want to.

Why him? Why couldn't it have been anyone else but a big, loafing nerd who couldn't even say he liked men?

Maybe he just couldn't _feel_ anyone else caring for him. Skyfire practically radiated it out of his sky-blue eyes. He didn't know enough to tell the difference between basic human regard and true affection — he'd had so little of either — but he liked what he felt from Skyfire. Liked it enough to make a stupid mistake and ruin everything.

He cleared his throat in the awkward silence left by Slipstream's attentive gaze, finally voicing a fear that had hit him like a train the second he saw Skyfire's horrified expression.

"I suppose he'll be calling me tonight, telling me he doesn't need me next week," he muttered. His mouth twitched bitterly, but he couldn't manage his usual sardonic smile. "That he has the whole thing figured out. Of course."

"While it would make your life easier, I don't think so."

Starscream glanced over at her again, hunched suspiciously over the counter. Slipstream sighed.

"Believe it or not, sometimes sex doesn't have to be involved for it to be good."

"You're a soppy little lesbian, you would say that," the Seeker snipped, pouring himself another cup of coffee with hands that shook only a little.

"And you're Starscream, you would insist otherwise," she parried flatly, then sighed, putting her forehead in her hand for a moment: a classic 'reeling in' gesture that had become fairly familiar to Starscream since he had actually started taking advice from his sister.

At last, she took a deep breath and spread her hands almost bracingly. As if revealing a totally revolutionary concept no one had ever thought of before, but she was revealing to him out of the goodness of her heart. _Ironically_, of course.

"Some things are just good, Star. As they are. They don't need anything more. They are good and they will stay good if you know how to treat them the way they should be treated."

"Like Skyfire," Starscream said reluctantly, not looking at her. His coffee sat on the counter, black and un-sweetened. He had a sudden urge to take a huge gulp of it, just to see if he could.

"Like Skyfire," she agreed.

The chemist's name in her voice, simple and low, made something click for Starscream. It made the Seeker heir believe that he could actually be a permanent fixture in his life, even beyond the upcoming halt of their laboratory time. Maybe it wouldn't be the way he wanted it, but he liked to believe he had enough self-control not to throw out such a stunning anomaly in his life just because Skyfire wasn't made-to-order. He was still a friend.

As if reading his thoughts, Slipstream finished,

"Lovers come and go, Star. Friends are for life, if you know how to keep them."

Starscream looked up at his sister with something like awe and realized he didn't even know who she was. Even though she had the ability to be the cruelest mistress on all forty-five floors and a relentless bitch besides that, maybe she wasn't so nonpartisan. Maybe she was just reflecting him: and as he got better, Starscream gained the privilege of seeing the good in her.

"Why are you in this business?" he asked shrewdly, searching her almost identical face as something dawned in his own.

"Because you are," she said and smiled faintly before taking his coffee cup with its black coffee from him and striding from the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his stinging hand.

* * *

That night found him at Thundercracker's door. He knew enough to remember the apartment complex but had to look on the tenet listing to find which one his brother inhabited. He fidgeted all fifteen floors and found his edgy nerves well-rewarded when Thundercracker's door opened and his burlier triplet stopped dead in his doorway. Perhaps it was just Slipstream making him oversensitive, but it struck the Seeker heir as singularly awful that he barely curbed the urge to offer his hand to the other man, _his genetic duplicate, _if just to dissolve some of the distance between them.

Thundercracker looked him up and down, not bothering to offer as much as a greeting or step into the harshly-lit hallway with him.

"And what have we done that the mighty Starscream has decided to honor us with his presence?" he sneered, actively _blocking_ the door with his bulky frame. The territorial gesture made Starscream's teeth snap shut, as did the jibe.

"Shut up, you sound like Sunstorm," Starscream muttered into his collar, then looked up. "Us?"

Inside TC's apartment, Skywarp sat up straight on the couch, looking like he dearly wanted to wave to him. Instead, he stuffed his hand into his lap at the last moment, looking at the TV with an nearly audible gulp. Something twinged in Starscream to see Skywarp do that and it wasn't all annoyance, but before he could place the emotion, Thundercracker whacked him in the chest, bringing his attention up front.

He almost bristled — there were ten years of habit screaming at him to bristle and dig his nails into Thundercracker's neck and bring him to the floor— but he closed his eyes, letting the blow dissipate into his tight chest. When he opened them, Thundercracker was still glaring at him mercilessly.

"What do you want, Starscream?"

Standing in the hallway, blocked from his brother's door, Starscream was struck hard by the sheer amount of loathing in that single sentence.

Thundercracker honestly thought he was there to torture them. He thought he had driven all the way there just to take the piss out of them and prove his own superiority — and who was he to say it wasn't a good guess? He'd never been there of his own accord. To them, he was nothing but an extension of his machinations at D-Con. He hadn't been anything more for quite a while, he realized, and the very thought left him feeling even more driven to get past Thundercracker's doorway. He hadn't really intended on lingering so whatever came after was up to many factors, but he needed to get inside that goddamn house.

Though he wouldn't admit it, he desperately needed to be more than just a disembodied scheme and a stabbing shard of ego lodged in somebody's foot.

"I want… to talk," Starscream said haltingly, forcing the words out one by one. In a string, they didn't make sense and he only hoped he meant them. Or TC would find out and have even more of a reason to hate him.

"About what?" his burlier triplet demanded, crossing his arms and leaning up against the doorway. He gestured to the skyline behind them, glinting through his full-length windows, mockingly. "Your next grand scheme to topple Megatron?"

"No." Starscream managed to keep his voice even, almost blank. "I've run out for the moment."

"On the day you die," he retorted, but there was no immediate screech, no clawing at his face. No screaming, no fighting, no nasty responses. No vitriol or defensive shrieking.

Starscream simply stood in his doorway, looking unusually sober. Waiting, and Starscream never waited on anything. He either took or he got the hell out. Thundercracker looked behind him, where Skywarp still sat on the couch, then frowned incredulously at his remaining triplet.

"You want to come in."

"Yes. I would like that." Starscream kept it simple for fear he would lie otherwise, then realized he wouldn't get anywhere with that disturbed look on Thundercracker's face, so he rolled his eyes and put a hand on his hip. "Afforded you can turn off Skywarp's cartoons long enough to have a decent conversation."

"Lay off Warp," Thundercracker grunted automatically, looking reassured that it really was Starscream at his door. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing was yet to be determined.

"Let me in and I will," Starscream returned stonily, glancing inside the house where Skywarp looked highly, highly uncomfortable that they were having a hissed conversation about him so he twiddled his thumbs and stared at the ceiling, taking another big gulp from what looked like a coffee drink. Christ, he needed to lay off the caffeine, Starscream thought scathingly, lip curling a little.

"You'll lay off him. Honest to god, not a single jab or snide, bitchy comment," Thundercracker said incredulously, as if reading his thoughts. Starscream, caught, bit his lip, glaring to the side.

The middle Seeker triplet had spent most of their childhood relentlessly, viciously bullying Skywarp — it was the root of his and Thundercracker's rivalry, honestly – and perhaps was to blame for most of his insecurities. Skywarp had never had too strong of a spine, but Starscream's verbal abuse couldn't have helped. It was very, very obvious that TC thought he couldn't break the nasty habit by sheer force of will. Starscream's eyes narrowed.

"You're making this sound like a bet," he said coolly, crossing his arms.

"I hardly think it's kosher to be betting on my baby brother," Thundercracker said, deep voice making it sound like a threat, but perhaps just a threat of reneging on his offer. Starscream's sharp brow inched up.

"Gentlemen's agreement, then. If I can make it all the way through the night without making a disparaging comment about Skywarp, you have to…"

The Seeker heir paused as if thinking, even adding a perfectly manicured nail to his chin. Thundercracker snorted.

"What, bring you coffee for a week?" he said contemptuously.

"No. You have to give me a chance," he said, locking eyes with his brother.

Thundercracker opened his mouth but found nothing to say to that, hardly expecting such from the man who delighted in humiliating them all. It was alien, unheard of. Perverse. He didn't know what it meant, but perhaps it was just that: a chance.

It was actually a horribly tall order. Starscream hadn't deserved a chance for over two years, and yet he was brazen enough to walk up to his door and ask Thundercracker to take him seriously? For a moment, he just stared at his brother. His identical sibling, his mirror, his bane and his rival.

"A chance," he said at last, as if Starscream were asking for plutonium.

"Need I repeat myself?" Starscream snipped, studying his nails.

"You sure you don't want two, just in case you have better things to do the first time around?" Thundercracker taunted him, his eyes belying his unease.

"I'll make do with one, thank you," Starscream answered icily. He stood at his brother's door with his hooked nose in the air, for a moment, letting Thundercracker think. Then, moved by some possessive urge he couldn't qualify, the Seeker heir glared at the doorbell and added under his breath, "He's my baby brother too, you know."

It was the wrong thing, or perhaps exactly the right thing to say. Thundercracker's dark eyes flashed and he finally, finally stepped aside.

"Prove it," Thundercracker said softly and he put out an arm as if ushering a king into his flat, which Starscream surveyed with a curl of his lip that wasn't as harsh as it could have been. Their dark eyes locked, but there was a faint trace of serious appraisal in Thundercracker's expression — his serious you-better-not-be-joking look – which Starscream intended to turn into full-on approval. Making a conscious effort to place his nose at the level it was supposed to be at, Starscream walked into his brother's flat, even providing a civil response to Skywarp's jittery greeting and, to his surprise, the couch met his approval, as did the wine and, after a while, even the conversation.

Skywarp was his kid brother, as he was Thundercracker's, and Starscream intended to prove it to both of them, whether it took him an evening or ten years.


	53. Nice

A/N: These two make me squee and make sadface at the exact same time. My nose was caught in the middle and it exploded. Now: extra-sadface with added disfiguration. Awww.

_Characters: Skyfire, Starscream_

_Pairings: Starscream learning to control his feeeeeeelings_

Warnings: none. Bonding moment with some funny highlights and sad undertones.

* * *

Nice

* * *

The last thing Skyfire expected to see on his doorstep that Friday night was a pair of glossy purple boots.

More awkward yet was the fact he had just spent over half an hour staring at his phone, trying to get up the nerves or the simple intelligence (or the sneaky deflecting verbage he had never been very good at) to call Starscream and somehow communicate to him that he really wasn't too freaked out by the whole thing in the lab and he didn't need to apologize or anything, not that an apology was needed like being gay was a bad thing, and honestly he was more than willing to have him back to the lab on Wednesday because he was a little helpless without help and really valued his assistance but if Starscream thought he couldn't handle it or was uncomfortable he could back out and Skyfire still wouldn't judge or anything because he really did still think of him as a friend and he'd hate to lose that friend over something as transient as a mistake unless it hadn't been a mistake for Starscream in which case they should really talk about it unless Starscream didn't want to talk about it.

All at once. Without making an idiot of himself. Without being offensive to a man very, very prone to offense. All in less than three minutes, which he was moderately certain was the cut-off point for answering machine messages, and that was even assuming he _got_ the Seeker's answering machine. The idea of sputtering that out into the Seeker heir's sardonic or possibly _hurt_ silence sounded like too daunting a task. It left him sighing grimly and pushing at his hair and absently flipping through his phone's memory, staring unseeingly at wallpapers and old text messages.

Then his dilemma saved him the trouble and knocked on his door, leaving him wide-eyed and rumpled in his doorway.

"Starscream?"

The slight Seeker heir was standing an uncomfortable distance from his door with a dark bottle tucked under his arm, back barely pushing the outer circle of his porch light. The combination of the yellow light and the descending evening threw his already sharp features into gaunt relief, exacerbating shadowed eyes and a hard mouth. It wasn't helped by his angular body posture, which fairly screamed that he had a thousand other better things to be doing. He looked like some kind of grim specter of the upper class, still trussed up in his D-Con uniform even if his tie was bare.

Skyfire swallowed audibly; he couldn't keep the nervousness out of his voice, which must have sounded like reluctance, which made him feel like he had to scrabble to be welcoming even if he didn't know why Starscream was _there_.

"What are you—"

Starscream took the bottle from under his arm and thrust it at Skyfire like a standoffish three-year-old being forced to give a toy back, pale face cocked just a millimeter to the side.

Skyfire's mouth fell open. After a moment of standing and staring, he took the dark, glossy bottle. His eyes widened when he read the label.

"This is a two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine!" he fairly croaked, holding it up to the buzzing light.

"I didn't have time to go to a proper store," Starscream snapped, surly. He had pushed past Skyfire and into his drab but functional living room by the time the chemist realized they had completely misunderstood each other — and he hadn't invited the other man in.

"Wait, Starscream," he blustered, his hand out. He wasn't sure he had anything to say, really, he was just trying to stop the knife's path the Seeker was cutting into his living room with his shoes. He only stopped at his old couch, hip cocked imperiously to the side.

"We're going to dinner," Starscream said without turning around. He reached into his pocket and emerged with his talons wrapped around his tiny cellphone. Skyfire stared at Starscream's back uncomprehendingly, heard what he said, then shook his head.

"What — no. Is that what you—"

"And why not? Whatever other plans you have, I guarantee you mine are in better taste. We're going." Starscream looked over his shoulder, one slender brow arching as he looked over the chemist's rumpled khakis and button-down. "And put on a suit. Not a jacket, but a whole suit. Assuming you have one."

"My _god_, why – how the hell are you so pushy _all the time_?"

It was all he could stand. Skyfire's voice came out loud and incredulous, strangely satisfying after so many half-statements and bleeding reluctance, not just of that night but the weeks beforehand and even Iacon. Any and all cautiousness with which he was going to treat Starscream was finally pushed aside by the sheer aneurism of dealing with him. Regardless of whether it had taken several months for Skyfire to accept that this part of the Seeker _bothered _him, and _deeply_, his frustration literally had his hands shoved against his temples, his face twisted in sheer disbelief.

"I don't understand you!" he exclaimed, gesturing at the sharp silhouette of the Seeker's back. "Do you always function like the people around you are soldiers or something? Why can't you _ask_ me if I want to go someplace before just… ordering me to do it?"

"I would think being kidnapped and forced to go to a fine restaurant would be the least of your problems," Starscream retorted as he turned around, offense creeping into his voice and posture.

"It's the principle of the thing!" Skyfire insisted, jabbing the winebottle into his palm. Then he realized Starscream was staring at him blankly and he was still yelling. Abruptly, all the fight went out of him. He went back to his nice, safe chemist's hunch, one hand coming up to scrub nervously at his hair. "I'd object to being ordered to, I don't know, take a million dollars. It's just not… _nice_."

"I am attempting to be nice to you!" Starscream said indignantly, striding over and relieving him of the wine bottle with a snotty tug. Skyfire, startled, let go and looked away from the Seeker's accusing look. He bit his lip.

"Okay, then. I can understand going to dinner, but why? Why the sudden urge to… be _nice_?" Skyfire asked, exasperation bleeding into his hoarse voice. He hated to be so simple, but he was bowled over by this strange encounter. He had never expected to see Starscream in his house and didn't know how to deal with the sudden change in behavior from the normally snappy, demanding but _thoroughly unconcerned_ man he had worked with for so many weeks.

Then he realized Starscream was looking at the wall, expression both inscrutable and definitively uncomfortable — and it clicked.

He was trying to make up for what he'd done. That last Wednesday in the lab. When he had kissed him, after that awful revelation that still nauseated Skyfire when he thought about it.

Skyfire felt all the confusion and resentment leave him in a near-audible woosh — as it always did whenever Starscream's true colors peeked through his manicured exterior and startled him. He forgot sometimes that the other man was human and not some robot mindlessly bent on domination of the nearest object.

Skyfire sighed and scrubbed at his hair as a wave of exhaustion rolled through his big body, the low boil of discomfort returning. Starscream ignored him (or waited for him to say something) as he searched around for and grabbed a nearby de-corker and set to the bottle in his hands. The chemist's prospective phone-message lurked in his head, cut up into a million jagged pieces and hopelessly scattered around, leaving him rubbing at his chin, the picture of lame reluctance. Finally, he took a deep, hesitant breath.

"Starscream, I... I don't need an apology for — "

"And I don't need your pity," Starscream said sharply, twisting hard then jerking upwards at the bottle until it opened with a wet pop. He set the impaled cork aside on the table, pausing only to pass it beneath his nose, which wrinkled in distaste. "Dinner or not."

"Dinner, yes," Skyfire managed after a moment, blinking as if struck. He gestured to his cluttered counter. "But not out. I've… already cooked."

"You can put it away for tomorrow or something."

"_Starscream_," Skyfire grit out before he could stop himself. He was glad he hadn't bitten his tongue: he was rewarded for his honesty when Starscream looked over his shoulder, his claw-like hands frozen on the neck of the wine bottle.

"You cook?" the other man asked incredulously, like he had just told him he practiced nude trapeze arts.

"Yes." Skyfire studied Starscream's crinkled, uncomprehending face, then continued slowly, "It's what the poor folk do when we get tired of Chinese food."

"You aren't poor anymore!" Starscream exclaimed, offense back full force and curling his lip clear up to his nose.

"I was _never _— god, that doesn't mean I can't be normal! I have patterns, I have things I like to do, and parading around in one of your weird gentlemen's clubs would only make me uncomfortable. Look, I just want to eat dinner here, without suits and ties!" Skyfire exclaimed, voice surprisingly heated again. Once he let Starscream underneath his skin, it was hard to stop _reacting_ even if he didn't know whether he was purging something buried or acting out of character, but then the big man looked at Starscream's surprised face and immediately deflated some. He cleared his throat and gestured lamely at the Seeker's mauve ensemble. "Well, you can keep yours on, I guess."

After staring accusingly at Skyfire for a moment more (as if it were his fault for being one of those poor folk when _Starscream_ himself hadn't sent him his new salary yet), Starscream flicked his hand dismissively

"Fine. I'll just cancel our reservations at the Coach Plaza," he said as he whipped out his phone again. Just from his lofty tone, Skyfire could tell the Seeker obviously expected a last-minute change of heart from his accomplice. Not likely.

He actually pouted when Skyfire smiled reluctantly and said _that would be nice_. As he watched the big blond man go back to attentively stirring his dinner, the Seeker finally seemed to realize, somewhere deep inside his over-indulged shell, that an evening was only fun if both people were enjoying themselves — and one couldn't be ordered to enjoy oneself. Starscream slumped, still wondering why he hadn't gotten his way (a rather shameful question to arrive at after nearly thirty years of life). His last surrender was re-holstering his cell-phone and trudging over to sniff unhappily at whatever Skyfire had on the stove.

The ravioli seemed to pass his inspection, but he looked in absolute horror at the contents of the chemist's cabinet, unable to find even a single wineglass. Shaking his head with something close to affection, Skyfire forcibly relieved him of the rich wine and poured it into two plastic cups before Starscream could shriek _oh dear god stop what are you doing_ as he so obviously was dying to do. It took a few sips before he realized that it tasted just the same in red plastic, even if he still held it with his pinky out, which went magnificently with his surly expression.

Surprisingly, things seemed to even out after that. With a little wine on-board, Skyfire was surprised how quickly the awkward kitchen stand-off turned into one of their older conversations. Like nothing had ever happened, they picked up right where they left off, and soon Skyfire was babbling so passionately that he sent pasta sauce slopping over the side of his pot and had to do a brief clean-up. Starscream didn't offer to help with dinner in the slightest and instead remained idly draped over the kitchen counter, toying with whatever was in reach. Still, his posture finally seemed relaxed, and something in the older man warmed to see that.

"All ready."

He set the plate in front of him on the counter with a small, awkward and completely unintentional flourish of his pot-holder. Starscream's look was downright dour, thinking perhaps of the snow-crab and kobe steak he could be having on a fiftieth floor somewhere. An annoyed look from Skyfire prompted a muffled sigh and a roll of his eyes, but after that, he behaved. Sort of. He still sent a sardonic look over to the canned sauce the chemist used, and Skyfire blurted out _I add stuff, you know_ before he realized that proving himself to Starscream was the biggest exercise in futility since Sisyphus. Besides that, the Seeker heir actively seemed to enjoy tormenting him in small ways; they had reached such a strange, honest yet surreal plane that Skyfire realized Starscream was smirking at him for rising to the bait, then _laughed_ and dug into his dinner without another word or lopsided attempt to verify his worthiness as a human being through ravioli.

They ate and talked. Everything was going so _well_ that Skyfire should have been prepared for a fall-out, but he was a fatal combination of optimistic and absent-minded. When Starscream opened the wrong door to get to his bathroom, all four bags of posh clothing from the recent shopping trip fell out, spilling their overpriced contents all over Starscream's over-priced boots. Skyfire jogged out to see what the clatter and the shriek was, then stepped back with a mildly horrified look on his face.

"You haven't even unpacked them?" Starscream demanded when he found his voice, pointing at the still-folded foppery and glaring daggers at the other man, who suddenly found his dirty dishes very, very interesting.

"They intimidate me," Skyfire muttered somewhat miserably as he grabbed his plate and slouched to the sink with it, dreading whatever rash of hell Starscream was going to force on him after so cruelly disrespecting his gift.

It wasn't through any cruel urge, but rather just what he said: he just didn't know what to do with the clothes. Where to wear them, how to act in them. He had politely moved them around his living room for days and days, from the coffee table to the TV to the hallway, before succumbing to his fear of the high-priced cloth bags and shoving them into his hallway coat-closet just to get them out of his mind. He had actually cringed upon doing so, knowing Starscream would eventually notice that his supposed new clothing looked a hell of a lot like his old floppy polos, but he never expected the Seeker to find out about his treachery so directly and honestly expected to have his face scratched off in the next five minutes. What would happen after was anybody's guess, but he did know no one would ever find his body, no matter how well-garbed.

To his great surprise, however, Starscream merely looked down at the pile of rich fabrics slumping over his boots, all over the cheap carpetting, then actually _smiled_ and shook his head. He chuckled hoarsely, one hand to his mouth, which looked weirdly stressed from the small action of turning up at the corners in such a soft, benign way.

"You can lead a horse to water," he said at last, with a hopeless, _accepting_ shrug of his shoulders.

"Last I checked, I was drinking," Skyfire said somewhat nervously, raising his glass with a half-smile. Starscream returned that smile, then extricated himself from the clothing pile with a few offended kicks of his boots. He walked to the kitchen counter, grabbed his plastic cup up like a man and gulped down half its contents, leaving his old lab partner blinking at him almost worriedly.

"We're going to need something harder," he muttered at the cup, finger to his chin.

Surprisingly, Skyfire was the one to lead him to the liquor cabinet.

The older man wasn't a drinker, but he had enough vodka and bourbon to get four people comfortably soused, which translated to two people getting unforgivably blitzed. And blitzed they got. Maybe it was because they were on a roll, maybe it was all the stress built up over this whole encounter that was actually turning out fine, but getting drunk simply sounded like something that Skyfire wanted to do at that moment, and the clink of a metal measuring cup sealed the deal.

Talking over synthesizing techniques became a rousing challenge with ounces of hard liquor weighing his tongue down and at one point Skyfire regretted teaching Starscream all or most of what he knew: full of chemist fire and ever-so-inspired, he bumbled a word that no pedestrian would know and Starscream literally fell over laughing and screamed it at him at least five times before Skyfire sullenly chucked a pillow at him. Drinking already made him flush something horrible so he really didn't need the help with his red cheeks. He rebelled by staring at the TV for a good five minutes as the Seeker snickered beside him, then the conversation painlessly drifted off to something else as Starscream tired of torturing him.

They got along just as well drunk as they did sober. Even better, perhaps, when it was still a shocking revelation that they got along _at all_. Eventually, the evening quieted down to sips of water and long periods of staring at the hectic middle of a B-movie they interrupted, which probably would have been indecipherable whether they'd caught it from the beginning or not. Both men were sitting on the floor, fairly surprised with their circumstances and occasionally pausing to shake the feeling back into their sprawled legs. Their conversation drifted, interrupted by intermittent explosions and natural ellipses alike; before Skyfire knew it, Starscream was talking disconnectedly about his family.

"I saw her going down the hall. Followed her because… a bit of her hair fell on the floor, a curl of it. She cut her hair. All of it, just cut it off down so some dykey lopsided bob when she knew that Mother loved it long. Then she went into the, uh, the… room where our maids lived — they had their own wing, but it was horribly small — and she just started kissing the one who took care of us. I was… I didn't know. How could I have known? I was thirteen or… something equally stupid.

"I went and ran and told Mother because I didn't know what else to do. It's what I always did. So Mother came back and I heard things from inside the room. Heard her yelling, then slaps, several of them, then she came out and… left. Disappeared for three years. Didn't see her. Without her, Mother… I was the only one she had."

Skyfire tried to pin himself back to the couch and process all of what he'd heard, still trying to recognize that slow, dull tone as _Starscream_. The content alone was staggering, but the voice itself just kept sending him for a loop. The Seeker was still sprawled next to him at the base of the couch. The man had long since abandoned his mauve jacket and his button-down had dissolved down to the middlemost button, his glaringly pale chest glowing in the blue, shifting light from the TV. Skyfire made a sound to show he was listening, drifting and sending his whole warm world lurching pleasantly for a moment when he turned his head on the couch-cushion, opening his eyes carefully.

"How could someone just walk out like that?" Starscream asked hoarsely, staring at the ceiling. It took the chemist a moment to figure out he was probably asking _him_ instead of the ceiling. Skyfire swallowed the dryness in his throat and took another sip of water with difficulty.

"Depends. Are you talking about the courage to escape or the… selfishness she had, to leave all of you there with your, uh, mother?"

"A little bit of both, I suppose," Starscream said dully. "It worked, obviously. I'm starting to think she's the only one out of the whole family who has any sense left in her. The rest of us… Mother slapped it all out. Father first and foremost. Someone should shoot that man in the head and put him out of his misery. At this point, after all he failed to do, it's the only favor I would afford him."

Skyfire might have made a sound, but he forgot. The heavy subject hung between them like a pendulum in the thick air, then waved itself into nothingness with another distracting round of noises from the fizzling speakers. Both men quieted to watch the perfectly sensible end of the B-movie, which left them both rather unsatisfied that the poor quality hadn't been consistent, at the least. In the silence and the serene crawl of the credits, Skyfire's head dipped, sleep threatening after this violation of his ridiculously wholesome sleeping schedule.

He made a noise when Starscream's cheek pressed against his big shoulder and he was drunk enough that it didn't matter. It was just a little pressure and it didn't bother him. Then Starscream's hand found his chest and a sudden anxiety stole the older man, tension clashing with the drunken soup of his muscles. He remembered the last Wednesday in a sudden, vivid, almost physical flash: when Starscream kissed him. Ironic, as that's what he was there to apologize for, and now they were drunk. How stupid was he, to get Starscream drunk after that?

Skyfire tensed noticeably, not even realizing he had pulled away only to be slapped sharply on the arm.

"Oh calm down," Starscream grit out. The smaller man was suddenly bundled against his wide chest, absolutely reeking of irritation in a way that allowed for no further questions. "You smell like cheap wine and marinara sauce — who the hell would jump you?"

Skyfire still held his breath for a little while, then realized, as his old lab partner simply sat beside him with his eyes shut, that Starscream's intentions truly weren't seductive. Soothed, he settled back and, in the syrupy haze of his fading drunkenness, somehow ended up flat on the floor with the other man lying against his side, head on his shoulder. It was odd, but not bad. Skyfire fell asleep immediately, weighed with an uncommon amount of alcohol and the normal stress of dealing with a demanding rich brat, even one who got considerably more tractable when intoxicated.

Pressed against his side, Starscream was struggling to stay awake. Roping his scattered nerve-endings and liquid limbs into the act of _remembering_, he tried to feel every inch of the strong arm that had fallen against his back, the heavy almost-snore in the half-dark above his head, even the cheap grainy carpet scratching him through his shirt. The smell of Skyfire. His good thing.

Pausing to plunge the room into comforting darkness with a click of the tv remote, Starscream wrapped his arms around the other man — his friend — and felt truly safe for the first time in years.

* * *

Outside, the watery blue light went out in the living room window; a nondescript car, parked a safe distance away, waited ten more minutes before pulling away and beginning its journey into the cold metal city, where there was a report to be made.


	54. Caught

A/N: God, Megatron is TERRIFYIINNNGGG. I'm really pleased with the canon callbacks in this, though, as it really does epitomize the sycophantic master-slave relationship they always have.

Get excited, guys! I have ninety percent of the last two chapters written, and I'll likely be able to post them before I pack up and leave for Spain. Hooray for long-overdue bursts of inspiration!

_Characters: Starscream, Megatron_

_Pairings: MegatronxStarscream, everpresent StarscreamxSkyfire_

_Warnings: language, violence, mindfuckery_

* * *

Caught

* * *

Nearly twenty-four hours later found Starscream sitting across a white table-top from the President, staring at his plate as a couple slow-danced within arms' reach.

The way he came to be there seemed to be nothing but a blur, but a few moments stuck out with painful clarity. The moment he opened his eyes and immediately pressed his face into the warm body next to his to escape the morning light shining through the apartment window, for instance. There was a finality in the way that Skyfire didn't wake when he did, even when he rose to his elbows and carefully slid a hand over the bigger man's side. Skyfire was quiet, handsome, huge; his glasses were hanging off his nose, which was sporting a pink imprint from where they had pressed into his face all night.

The very sight made Starscream want to do stupid things and he surprised himself by not doing them, but rather curling up next to the big man again and shutting his eyes.

Starscream lay there for minutes more, telling himself it was the hangover weighing him down, but it was as if something were cooling between them as the new day came on in earnest: his own illusions, perhaps, or the realization that, no matter how long he lay there curled against Skyfire, nothing would change. Skyfire would not or could not look at him with anything more than the friendliest of regards, both lukewarm and earnest. What was left in the wake of that epiphany was greyed and disappointed but solid. The Seeker heir wasn't used to compromise but something else was keeping him from throwing the whole affair to the winds.

Something that could be worthwhile, if he knew how to handle it.

Gathering his things, he left without saying goodbye, partially because he didn't want to face the impartiality implicit in a confused wave of Skyfire's hand and a stifled yawn. He drove home and spent the rest of the day finishing up the papers he had neglected Friday, aching from head toe. Perhaps it had been the cheap flooring, but it was as if his body had been so intent on soaking every little detail in while he slept that he woke feeling creaky and tired. Unrested, hazy and sapped of most will to move.

When Megatron summoned him to his curb at eight, Starscream had no room in him for anything but a nod and a mumbled acquiescence.

He simply couldn't get out of it: the last time they had spoken of their deal, Megatron had nearly crushed his wrists. But this was, for certain, his very last outing with the tyrant. His only hope now was to tell Megatron the news tonight, in public, and perhaps the man wouldn't reach across his penne rigatta and strangle him.

Such was his sardonic, self-deprecating tone and poise: it crept into Starscream's every gesture, hiding in the lines beneath his eyes. The younger man was heavy with a strange distant bitterness not at all in keeping with his pugnacious, relentless nature. If the President noticed his Second looking a bit less attractive than normal, he had the good social breeding not to say anything, regardless of the cool way his dangerous grey eyes slid over the younger man's face and lackluster attire.

Perhaps it was because Starscream was too tired to notice anything out of the ordinary in his employer, or even work up any fear if he did, but the dinner simply happened. It passed in overlapping increments of subject matter and courses, each broached with clipped comments and broadened with formulaic exchanges and the clink of silverware.

When Starscream set his tiny dessert fork down, Megatron took that as a cue to take his wineglass in hand, rise from his chair and motion to the balcony. The Seeker heir watched his employer walk halfway to the glass doors, stride strong with the expectation that Starscream should follow him immediately. Then he rose and did so.

Somewhere in him, he felt like he should have been terrified. He wasn't.

Perhaps it was the fact that he knew that Skyfire would help him, if he needed it, and not being utterly alone in the world lent him a bit of strength. Precious data from the past few weeks was beginning to converge and be assimilated. Perhaps he had never been alone: he had his brothers. His sister.

It was somewhat sad that the police weren't even on his list of possible assistance, but criminals didn't go to the police seeking justice. Uncovering just a bit of D-Con's activities would mean throwing the whole blanket back and then he would be lucky enough just to get a cell next to Megatron. All he could do now was play along until he could stop the game, which would go no further than tonight.

Starscream opened the glass doors and received a gust of warm air on his face, ruffling his limp dark hair. He was reminded, as he so often had to be when it came to the turn of the seasons, that it was almost halfway through spring. It was nothing like the last time he had been on a balcony with the huge man now leaning on the railing, grey eyes locked on the warming Detroit below them.

"You are feeling guilty about something, Starscream," Megatron said into the quiet of the upper city stratosphere, voice deep and clear. Below them, an endless necklace of headlights winked through intersections and side-streets.

"Am I?"

Starscream asked it just to ask, then came back to himself: realizing where he was and whom he was speaking to. Megatron despised his sideways, patronizing questions — and, to his credit, the Seeker had never asked one on accident before. Scraping together the basest of his training, Starscream forced himself to lean against the nearby railing and school his voice into something curious and almost lofty. His insides creaked as much from the effort as the sudden difficulty of something that had always been so evilly effortless.

"What makes you think so, President?"

"If there is one thing I have learned about you, it is how to recognize the signs of when you have something hiding under your skin," Megatron stated shortly, dealing his Second a glance over his shoulder as he swirled his wineglass with an expert tilt of his wrist.

Starscream couldn't bring himself to deny his master's knowledge. It was probably true, and a much-needed defense mechanism on the older man's part. Starscream had surely spent more time deceiving his superior than working with him or even simply coexisting. The part of him that couldn't see past his recent disappointment wondered blithely how he had found the energy to be so constantly argumentative.

Still, work was a comfortable subject for them now, as long as it kept the conversation off of themselves. He thought about the accusation far more slowly and calmly than he should have, following the well-worn tracks of their two year history. He hadn't had time for any schemes lately, just as he'd told Thundercracker. What was the old fool on about?

"You know as well as I do I've been exceptionally well-behaved these past few months," Starscream muttered to the marble floor. "I would even go so far as to call my behavior model."

"Thus proving that, even when you fulfill the wildest of my expectations, you still manage to disappoint me," Megatron rumbled to his left. "Where were you last night?"

"Last night? I…"

Starscream began to speak out of nothing more than a knee-jerk response, then looked over, eyes wide.

Megatron was facing him, grey eyes locked on him in a way that made his heart pound painfully. He had only given that look – his eyes only possessed of that demonic, hateful intensity — when Starscream had committed a particularly grievous error, usually before putting hands to him. He swallowed, thinking the glass doors were hardly a deterrent if Megatron truly wanted to beat him and then went cold because of it.

"I hardly think that's any of your business, imbecile."

But his voice cracked on the clumsy insult and his eyes were wide. They only widened piteously when Megatron exhaled sharply through his nose like a taunted bull and closed the distance between them, big hand gripping his chin so hard it sent a flare of pain, but mostly shocking apprehension, into his neck. Starscream twisted and made a thick, protesting noise, then stilled preternaturally at the sight of his Lord and President's handsome, severe face in front of his, Megatron's eyes searching his without mercy.

His hands laced over the larger man's, nails not dug in. If he broke the skin, fought back, it would give permission for whatever darkness hiding in the other man to claw its way out.

"Answer me, if you have no guilt."

The Seeker tried to make his face anything but terrified, but Megatron's hateful grey eyes had put a seed of fear in him that was sending shoots into his every limb and he began to know where the line was being drawn — and how it was looped around Skyfire's neck. At last, Megatron gave him a smile so slim and cruel it nearly made Starscream fall to his knees.

"God, but you have kept your promise, little Seeker."

"Promise?"

He could do no more than parrot him, voice breaking out of the plaster shell of his chest.

"You have indeed expanded my horizons as my Second. You will, of course, remember your little _pitch_."

He had indeed promised such a thing, but Starscream was deadly certain this had nothing to do with business as Megatron roughly switched his grip to the back of his neck, yanking the skinny man close, voice reduced to a hot, grating whisper.

"So true, in the end. I did not know I was physically capable of such madness, such… animal _jealousy_ until you slithered your way into my existence, telling me what I can and cannot have. You have toyed with me long enough, Starscream, and dearly underestimated the flaws you have so lovingly carved into my armor. As you have unleashed this side of me, prepare to face the brunt of it, _pasariño_."

"President?" Starscream asked faintly, but the very sound of his voice, meek and pleading, seemed to worm under the older man's skin and sour him further. Megatron's hands tightened, as if incapable of containing a rage that encased his very bones.

"Your tie has been bare for upwards a week now," he hissed. "Shunning my token was not a wise choice. It speaks of your betrayal before your lips can move to lie."

"Megatron, you're — you're hurting me — " he grit out. _Here_, his brain tried to say, you're hurting me _here where everyone can see_ because pain from Megatron was as natural as anything but he literally cried out when the older man yanked him against him and dug his fingers into his white neck.

"_Hurt you_, Starscream," came the bare laugh, wrapped up in his name like the whole thing was a sour joke. Megatron jerked him close and continued in a grating, horribly exultant whisper that made Starscream fear the blunt edge of his teeth above his neck. "I have not yet begun to hurt you. You will beg for bruises after I am done with you."

Mouth twisting in disgust, Megatron thrust him away. Gasping, Starscream stumbled away with a hand to his aching neck, knee nearly taking him to the marble. Then the President turned towards the balcony once more.

"You are dismissed," Megatron informed him in an inhumanly deep rumble, grey eyes set on the expanse of the city even as they burned with an otherworldly hatred. His shoulders were straight, his poise painstakingly reposed even as the younger man could see the vein in his thick neck twitching. Starscream's mouth worked wordlessly for a moment before he bent and pawed at his tie, thumb swiping over the blank spot – the open sore – atop it.

"I… Megatron. Please, explain. My lord, how could I anger you without even knowing how?"

He heard the simper coming out in his voice but couldn't stop it. The sickening, pleading sweetness that was a product of his rotting confidence, his stupid assumption that anything he valued was safe from the older man. He had spent so long praying it was business even as he knew it wasn't.

All of that was time wasted, time he could have been protecting Skyfire from this inevitable moment, when Megatron realized someone had, if only in the most symbolic of senses, what he wanted.

But now, Starscream could hardly move his throat to speak when faced with the most disturbing realization of all: Megatron's wants were not and would never be simple, or even rational. This was not something that could be solved with a service or physical favor. Megatron wanted much, much more than he had assumed, wanted much more than the man himself had ever volleyed for, and that alone filled Starscream with an indescribable terror that could, for the man who never ceased to speak and rile and deny, only be expressed in shaking silence.

The Seeker's clawed hands fretted above the iron expanse of Megatron's back, finally settling on the older man's arms and pawing at the silk. He barely resisted the urge to press himself against his wide back, squirm close and hope to soften him by proximity even as he knew it could go horribly wrong. To see that grey expanse and know it had been levied against him in its entirety was simply too much for him.

"Please, Megatron."

Nonsensical, now. Insane to match the insanity of the man's hatred and desires. His voice climbed upwards, shaking, shaking, shaking.

"The pin. I'll wear it again, I was just… having it cleaned. Megatron? I beg of you, tell me what I've done and give me leave to —"

"You are _dismissed_," Megatron bellowed, hands still locked behind his back, one hand restrained by the other as if he let himself go he would injure Starscream, or finally murder him. Looking at his shaking white fists, scarred knuckles, the Seeker backed up frantically, nearly stumbling to his knee at the sight of Megatron's white bared teeth just beyond the crest of his shoulder.

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," he whispered, unable to breathe the warm night air. Giving his lord and master one last terrified glance, Starscream pushed through the glass doors, unaffected by the rush of light and soft noise and people and perfectly folded napkins. He strode stiffly through the tables until he couldn't contain the fear boiling through his cavernous chest and he broke into a panicked run, narrowly avoiding crashing into a waiter, who dropped his plate full of wine-glasses with an earth-shaking crash.

Shards flew everywhere. Starscream, stumbling away, made a vague, wordless gesture and then stared down at the piles of broken crystal in terror, paralyzed by the memory and far-away feel of them. Taking a deep gulp of air, he hid his scarred hand under his jacket as he turned and ran from the mayhem and his torturer as if he could truly escape in the city that belonged to the President.

No matter how many stairs, how many streets or doors or how far he ran, he would always be found. He was, after all, expected at eight a.m. on Monday morning, and there was no commitment more akin to shackles than his empty desk. For his reputation, for his dogged desires, for his family, for his ego, Starscream would come crawling back into arm's reach, and that itself was some kind of beautiful insanity that sent a tightness down the President's spine.

On the balcony, Megatron closed his eyes and let go of his own hands with a creak of his fingers. He coolly lifted them for inspection, knowing he had left bruises on himself, but it was all for the better. It was teaching him restraint. Finesse, even, which seemed a constant battle that he had begun a lifetime ago.

He almost pitied Starscream, though it was on a purely theoretical level. The brat was histrionic in his belief that death was the worst punishment a superior could mete out. As with so many things, reality was very different from what Starscream imagined. The most vital of injuries could stem from a word or gesture — or a well-broken bit of deception. Assuming he had correctly entrusted the delicate procedure to Shockwave, Megatron's Second would soon learn one of his master's most hard-won lessons: pain was all in the mind.

He was, after all, not Starscream's greatest enemy. There was someone else on his payroll who could cut Starscream down to nothing far better than he ever could and he was content – nay, eager – to let it play out.

Someday, if that precious mind was still intact, Starscream would thank him for this.


	55. Ultimate Measure

A/N: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

Times like these, we learn what's really important to us, no matter how damaging that information may be.

_Characters: Starscream, Skyfire, Megatron-centric_

_Pairings: StarscreamxSkyfire_

_Warnings: language, trauma, sadness, lessons_

* * *

Ultimate Measure

* * *

The following Monday, Starscream only got as far as his desk.

He drove into the garage, scaled the front steps, and stepped into the elevator without a change in expression, but the moment he opened his office door and saw his empty chair and desk, he broke into a full-on run to the elevator, wretchedly reliving every time he had picked up the phone on Sunday and put it back down with a shaking hand, unable to even think about what had happened the previous night.

Rationalizing things to himself. Telling himself that Megatron had never mentioned Skyfire, and that things might be fine. A passing storm, an intimidating flash of tooth but nothing more. The man could be completely unaware; bluffing like the idiot he was.

Such thoughts were hollow, and their gaudy Faberge egg shells broke and dug into Starscream's skin as he ran into his car and screeched out onto the street, mocking him for being so stupid, so frightened, so insipid. The power and rage he had felt from the President was incapable of being underestimated. There was a chance Skyfire was dead already.

Starscream had never felt such roiling hatred for himself when he realized that, if that were the case, the thing that kept him from picking up the phone was the fear of explaining everything to Skyfire. His secrets were so knotted, even he couldn't make sense of them. For risk of revealing them, for risk of revealing himself, he may have caused his friend's death.

The Seeker pulled into the laboratory garage and manically slashed his keycard through the door five times until it beeped and let the doors hiss back, the sound split by the desperate staccato of his heels. He sprinted down the familiar empty halls, knowing with horrible certainty that Skyfire was there, but whether he was at his counter or beneath it was the question.

Sucking in air, Starscream shoved the door to his and Skyfire's lab open. He saw bottles, he saw an empty stool and a water bath. The lab was silent, empty of the usual bounce and guitar of classic rock. Many different kinds of empty. His hand slapped to his heart and clenched into his suit jacket; a bare exhalation of the man's name took half the strength from his knees.

He staggered to the nearest counter and barely saved himself from collapsing outright when a big blond man came out from behind a partition, one gloved hand to his glasses.

Starscream's hand went jerking into a rack of test-tubes and he didn't even hear the sharp crashes as they hit the floor: all he could hear was his breath rasping in and out of his open mouth and his heart in his ears. Suddenly burning up, he ripped at his clingy suit jacket and threw it to the floor.

"Fuck. _Fuck_," he grit out, scraping his hand over his numb face. Blocking up the hole in his chest. "Oh Christ, you're here."

Starscream didn't see his face, didn't see Skyfire's expression: all he saw was big, blond, lab-coat and glasses and pink skin, implied breath. Still alive. All that mattered was Skyfire was still alive.

"We need to move. You have to get out of here," the Seeker choked out, the guttural words as immediate and vital as his next breath. He pushed his hair from his face and looked around for a jacket and a wallet, already planning three steps ahead: hitting the chemist's apartment for bare essentials and rerouting his bank account. "Gather your things."

"What's going on?"

"Megatron has been watching us. I can't explain right now, but it's very likely he could come barging in here at any minute and I guarantee you neither of us will survive it," he muttered through his teeth, ripping Skyfire's log-in papers from the wall-cache by the door and halving them twice with vicious whips of his wrists. "If you value your life, you will move."

"But I can't just leave. Don't you want me to finish what you paid me for?"

He heard Skyfire's steady, deep voice as if from very far away. His ears were still bursting with his own heartbeat, but something told him the chemist's voice should have been sharper. Louder. More real.

"Forget about the stupid compound!" the Seeker yelled, voice cracking as he turned and pointed to the door. "I am D-Con's Second in Command and I officially release you from my service!"

"As if I would stay on a second longer, after this."

The impenetrable chill in Skyfire's deep voice made the Seeker look up. Actually seeing Skyfire for the first time stilled every molecule of panic in his scrawny, nerve-wracked body. The flat expression on the big man's face and the clench of his fists dropped him into an entirely different level of shock. One that made it hard to breathe.

Starscream's dark eyes narrowed, expression both stunned and uncomprehending, but Skyfire didn't give him a chance to speak.

"I have to wonder why you took so long to give me this," Skyfire said too softly, his lip curling up over his teeth.

Starscream fought the urge to back away; the tension rising off of Skyfire's huge shoulders was palpable. Never had Starscream seen any part of the big, gentle man curl or stiffen or sharpen. It was only when the chemist raised his hand that D-Con's Second saw the manilla file half-crumpled in Skyfire's bloodless fist.

"Did you think I wasn't going to look closely at it? Or did you think I was just going to… go along with whatever you wanted? Not only did you lie to me about the experimental petroleum product, I _know_ this gas, Starscream. This gas has been classified as illegal by the ACS and all nations in the chemical coalition."

Starscream couldn't tear himself from his friend's face and the slow-spreading hatred he saw there. The heat suffocating his body had turned into a skin-cracking chill, leaving him shaking.

"What… gas?" Starscream rasped, hands drifting close to his chest.

"The toxic nerve gas," Skyfire said through his teeth, "whose dry-start activation ingredient you've had me synthesizing for the past four months."

Skyfire's face was white, his eyes hyper-blue and burning with righteous rage. His fist was shaking around the file, tension knotting further and further up his arm. Starscream swallowed against the upsurge of pure dread, unable to keep the fear from his expression. His mind pushed against an incomprehensible barrier, crippled by the hatred he saw on Skyfire's face.

He was never supposed to find out. How did he find out?

When Starscream carefully put his hands out and took a step forward, the chemist flung the twisted manilla file on the ground, sending papers flaring into the air between them.

"You never told me what my research was being used for!" Skyfire bellowed, and just the sharp slap of his voice made Starscream's own jump to the back of his throat and out, to protect him from what Skyfire could do to him.

"It isn't your place to ask," the Seeker snapped, hardly feeling the words leave his lips. "You do the work we assign you and that is where your concern ends."

"Weapons? _Illegal biological weapons_? It all makes sense. I knew looking at it, I knew something was off. The structure, the reactivity and the projected application. But how — how could you _think_ —"

"I think the blame ends when you didn't think enough to reason what a weapons company would want with your skills," Starscream said coldly, but the second it was out, he nearly slapped his hands over his mouth to stop the stream of _Mother, work, defense, automatic_. He stifled a curse and looked up, but the betrayed, helplessly enraged look on Skyfire's face told him he had already done enough. More than enough.

Skyfire turned and yanked off his lab-coat, flinging it to the ground. Starscream stooped for it with a pained exclamation, clawed into the white cotton as if claiming or containing some part of the big, once-gentle chemist. His friend.

"Skyfire, _stay_."

The desperate crack in his voice was enough to make Skyfire – soft even when hard, empathetic even when betrayed – look back, even if the expression on his face was anything but understanding. Starscream bundled the coat to his chest and grasped for words, finally gesturing at the spotless lab around them.

"It was a company project, I didn't know about the gas! All of this is from Megatron!"

"You're head of this project." Before the Seeker could speak, Skyfire jabbed his finger at the pile on the ground, neck red. "Don't lie to me! It's right here in the file, in the header!"

If there was one thing Starscream knew it was impossible to argue with, yet easiest to change, it was the big print. He didn't waste time being shocked.

"I can – I can put you on another project, it doesn't matter!"

"How the hell can you say that?" Skyfire demanded incredulously, voice raw. "You expect me to just — to just leave you to trick someone else? _How_?"

"Whatever helps your conscience!" Starscream snapped, then choked out in the same breath, "You can't leave."

"You just said I had to!"

All Starscream could do was stare blankly at Skyfire, standing across from him in the empty lab, until it all caught up with him. Everything. What he was doing; what he should have been doing. He grit his teeth until it hurt, realizing where he had made a left turn.

He had been mindlessly pushing through the plea he always knew he would have to make, momentarily blind to the fact he had to get Skyfire out and away as fast as possible. Always, some part of him had been preparing for the moment he would have to fight Skyfire's searing virtue in order to stay by his side. The moment the gap between them would be revealed and answering gaps were gouged into his flesh.

"You do. You have to leave, if you want to live," Starscream made himself say, hoarse. He put out his hand. "Come with me."

"No. You come with me," Skyfire said stonily. Starscream looked up, painfully perplexed and almost dry heaving from the unsolved crush of failing to move the chemist's stocky figure from such a dangerous place. He needed to do it.

When Skyfire spoke again, deep and unrelenting, all Starscream heard was _too late_.

"I know that this doesn't start or end with you and I'm not the first scientist you've ever tricked. Megatron has been doing this for a long time. But you can end it."

"End what?" Starscream asked hysterically, throwing his lab coat to the floor. His voice shot up and cracked, dripping fear too thick for his skinny frame and bent back. His hands clutched helplessly at the air. "What is there to _end_?"

"You can come with me to Sumdac. Expose this, testify against Megatron." Skyfire's face, if possible, became even harder as he looked at the wrecked man in front of him. "You can get amnesty for your own involvement, or a lessened sentence, but they can't deny a direct testimony from a Second. With you, he can be brought to trial."

Starscream felt his reality misting upwards, worsened by staring at Skyfire's unchanging expression. The seriousness in his eyes – no, the conviction in his eyes, the _belief_. And then the idea of simply walking into a courtroom and blurting all of it out? Starscream was ripped in half by an urge to laugh and cry; what stuttered out of his mouth was a stunted cough, crunched by a faint moan as he bent and clutched at his face.

"You don't understand how this works," Starscream moaned, hardly recognizing the voice as his own. He looked up, begging Skyfire to understand with his eyes. "No one — _no one _— goes against Megatron and lives."

If he testified, Megatron would find him. That wouldn't be the end of it. He would hunt down every last one of his brothers, his sister, his family. Anyone who had ever thought about caring for him. And if he tried to run, he would follow him to the ends of the earth for the sole pleasure of choking the last of the life out of him.

And he would do all of this from atop his perfectly intact empire, re-awarded to him by the Supreme Court after a heart-felt apology for all the confusion.

"This isn't about Megatron anymore," Skyfire said fiercely, gesturing at the stocked walls and the company symbol on the door. "There are _laws_ in place to prevent this kind of thing, Starscream, upheld by higher forces like the govern —"

"You don't fucking understand! The government is a bunch of money-laundering spooks who spend their Saturday evenings planning wars and price inflations and when they want horrible things done, they _go to him_! Megatron is _employed_ by the government, he _is_ the fucking government. They have too much to lose if he goes under so he _will never go under_."

Starscream's hand slapped down on a nearby counter and he sagged onto it, shoulders quivering as he fought, tooth and nail, not to cry. He crushed his other hand to his mouth and looked at Skyfire standing across from him, strong and tall with his blue eyes blazing and his fists clenched with absolute strength on his face. Absolute justification, vindication, want of justice.

"He's going to kill you." Starscream's voice came out as a whisper, nearly a whimper. Mechanical and faint, nothing more than the echo that drifted up from his hollow chest. "He's going to kill you and all you can do is just stand there and talk about justice like it still applies to you."

"You may be in a place where you can't imagine justice anymore, Starscream. Someplace where nerve gas is just a product and it leaves your mind as soon as it leaves the shelves. But I still can," Skyfire said quietly. His mouth thinned and he bent to pick up the papers he had spilled, turning them into evidence with every swipe of his hand. "And if I die for that idea, then I'm going to make as much noise as possible before I go."

"You say that. You say that but you're terrified. You're terrified of dying," the Seeker accused him shrilly, jabbing a finger down at him.

"Everyone is. But some people can see beyond themselves. Some people would never harm others to benefit themselves, and still other people would put themselves in harms way to prevent that kind of abuse from continuing."

His words were stupid. Canned. Skyfire was no hero. Starscream's mind almost threw the phrases and their sentiment aside, then Skyfire gave him a look so cold it was beyond accusing. It put a universe between them, an advancing ice block that nearly killed Starscream where he stood. The hardest part was, it had always existed… the light had simply never hit it right.

"No. No, Skyfire, no, please."

Senseless, now, just like with Megatron. His existence spiraled, reduced to irrationality after irrationality, all eked from a tight throat suspended above shaking knees.

"You _can't leave_."

He wasn't thinking about the lab, he wasn't thinking about the company, but it was as though the fabric of his being had become woven into D-Con and the labs like electrical wires. The fact of it was, after Skyfire went through the door, he would be gone and Starscream would be alone. He would leave _him_.

"That's where you're wrong, Starscream," Skyfire answered, straightening with a full folder. "I can leave, and I'm doing it. And I'm telling every ACS board member I know about what you're doing in here."

The chemist walked across the room to gather one thing – his laptop – then went straight for the door. Unable to move, Starscream watched, unraveling with every foot of distance between them. To see Skyfire's wide back turned against him made him incapable of thinking, talking, hoping or trying. The world beyond the lab door was unsafe, but the Seeker didn't even have the will to keep him from it.

To Starscream's mingled horror and hope, Skyfire stopped at the door to the lab. He turned around, expression wounded.

"How could you do this? How?" he asked, and Starscream heard him. The Skyfire he might have loved, the one he still wanted to be with. Stupidly. Hearing that gentle voice cracked with so much disappointment, so much pain, the Seeker heir couldn't find it in himself to lie.

"It's what we do," Starscream answered hoarsely.

"That's not an _answer_!" Skyfire roared, slamming the door shut. The sound made Starscream grab for the counter again, spine convulsing. "That's not a fucking answer and you know it!"

Even more caustic was the vibrating anger left in the air after his voice faded. Starscream couldn't do anything more than grip the side of the counter and keep breathing. Skyfire tensed as though he was going to say something else, then he simply shook his head and pulled the door open. And left.

It was then, standing alone (always alone) in the lab, that Starscream realized he didn't give a fuck about people.

He couldn't give a damn how many people died as a result of this gas – didn't care how many suffered from mines or bombs or null rays or shock-batons – but he almost felt as though he could _start_ caring if it would take away the hatred in the other man's stare. Saturated with panic and fear, he was sure he could save himself or save Skyfire or both, if only he would turn around and walk back in. All of these pleading words were at the cusp of the Seeker's throat (and even if he said them he knew Skyfire wouldn't accept them) but then they met his fear and everything that had kept him safe for twenty years, and all of it hardened and something horribly different came out.

Something rotten. Something old.

"No one will believe you."

Halfway out the door, Skyfire paused. The calmness in the Seeker's voice was poisonous and unreal – and the echo made Skyfire shut his eyes and grit his teeth, a wave of nausea pushing through his body. It had been true, all those years ago. But back then he hadn't had the nerve to speak, and this time it would be different.

"I won't stop until they do."

The door clicked shut.


	56. Crescendo

_Characters: Megatron, Starscream_

_Pairing: MegatronxStarscream_

_Warnings: language, hyper-violent yet entirely consensual sexual content, mutilation, mental break-downs, mind-fuckery and just desserts. Unedited to be found at AFFnet, which I would really recommend reading if just for completeness.  
_

* * *

Crescendo

* * *

The door to Megatron's office swung open and hit the wall, cracking against the concrete.

"You."

He was breathing hard. Too hard to think, only to feel.

Starscream only remembered staring at the door, throat closing around that phrase _no one will believe you_ and something else closing against that look on Skyfire's face, until his fingers were white on the handle and he was running down the hall. He sped down the street, dry eyes locked on the insidious gun-metal sheen of the purple high-rise. The crack of his heels carried him into its depths and then its heights. The elevator had drifted to a halt and bounced, sticky-slow, on the forty-first floor. The instant the doors halved, Starscream bolted out and clipped a faceless suit's shoulder, sending papers pluming everywhere as he sprinted for the stairs.

He didn't exist – couldn't confront what he was doing – until his hand wrenched at the handles to Megatron's office and suddenly the full-length windows were bleaching the carpet into squares and, at the other end of the silent room, a grey-suited silhouette was waiting for him.

"Starscream."

His voice was strong and deep and final, the only sound in the room. It filled the office and made it into a sun-streaked cathedral, the thorny purple mark of the company gleaming behind the master and his mahogany pulpit. Megatron turned around, hands clasped at his back. The grey eyes that found Starscream's dark, wide ones were lidded, possessed of a surety and a veiled glee that was subtly horrifying, as threatening as the heft of Megatron's muscles beneath his grey silk.

And for the first time ever, Starscream felt no fear.

"How dare you," he whispered. He craved to scream it, wanted to gouge it into the skin of the man's neck and belly, but his voice was shaking too badly and his slight body was consumed with the pendulous vibration of _not falling apart_. Megatron only looked at him, waiting, and his motionlessness made his Second jerk forward, hands balled into fists. "You set me up. You planted those files – the _real_ files – for Skyfire to find. Promoted me to make it look like I planned the whole thing."

Head pounding, Starscream was expecting him to deny it and make him a child fighting for the truth of a night fright, but Megatron's slithery smile was locked in place, eyes forward.

"It was actually Shockwave who did the paperwork, but it was under my orders," the President allowed. He reached up and removed his glasses, folding them in his monstrously huge palm with pensive motion. He turned towards the full-length windows and the cubist abstract of Detroit encased below them. "And I felt it proper to promote you to head of the project due to your great personal stake in it. In all honesty, I am surprised to hear of your own surprise. Your demands for more authority are, after all, nothing if not constant. Just this once, I suppose you underestimated your importance in things."

Starscream opened his mouth to speak but Megatron's powerful form pivoted and his broad hands slammed down on his desk, entire torso suddenly vibrating with locked-up power.

"Yes, Starscream," he said low and clear, grey eyes lighting fiendishly. "I pre-meditated and executed every whining accusation on your tongue. You would say every detail of your gaudy misery is due to my actions, but I did no more than the barest of what you suspect. You did the majority of the work for me. The true question is, are you going to fight me one last time, or will you accept your lesson quietly?"

"Lesson," Starscream barked, disbelieving heat rising in his neck.

His hands clawed, whiter. He could barely look at Megatron: the urge to leap forward and tear into his face was too strong. The remnants of his world pressed in from all sides, fragments unbearably heavy and serrated. When he spoke, his voice came rough and rasping from the middle of his empty chest.

"You madman. You insufferable fool, you arrogant, controlling_ bastard_. You dare call this a _lesson_ when you have clearly sabotaged a portion of my personal life through nothing but your uncontrollable jealousy and desire to own —"

"Do not wax poetic to me of cruelty, of rights or wrongs or basic human rights!" Megatron nearly roared, voice rocketing to the ceiling as his hand slammed down on the desk again. "Is it too late for that, for any of that!"

"Are you insane?" Starscream managed to demand, voice edging higher. His very muscles were shocked by the monstrous bass in the other man's words, the exultant strength. Still there was no fear, only a deep mental tightening. A preparation for battle. "If I signed away my rights as a human being upon entering this company, you neglected to mention that in the contract!"

"Your mother signed it all for you with slips of her hand," the older man grit out, mouth warped in a ghastly grin around the wall of his teeth and twitching steadily wider. Manic, he pushed himself away from his desk and stalked around it with heavy panther strides, causing the thinner man to draw back instinctively.

"No," he breathed, eyes locked on his Second's face. His hand was up, trembling in the air, and Starscream sensed the distance between them could be halved by a slap but he did not move, breathing harshly through his teeth, neck strung tight. Instead, the older man leveled a finger at him, but still the weight of his fist remained. "You, my dear and treacherous Second, are exactly where you have bargained to be. Every step taken with care."

"How can you – "

"A person with an ounce of self-respect would have resigned the moment I struck them. A _good_ person would have reported me, and a yet better person would have been aghast at the idea of remaining silent. You have accepted injustice, Starscream. You have accepted might over right, and would use it to get what you want – what I have – in a moment if you could. We are not to be held to inspection boards or reports. We are not to be held to the human condition, and you have accepted that. You would seek to _rule_ that, and have selected treachery as your pet weapon to get what you desire. I know you, I learn yet more from the ways you attempt to hide from me, and I _know_ you are more intelligent than to expect protection from the same rules you flout daily."

The glass between them and the brightness of the city suddenly seemed horrifically thick, walling them off from all air and warmth even as the blinding white of the sun-bars bleached the floor. Suddenly, Starscream could feel every floor between them and the ground: the Seeker stood in the middle of his superior's office, separated from the earth by a mile of concrete and steel, and felt an isolating chill unlike any other. Megatron had indeed created a separate world. Far away in a safe place, Starscream heard himself speaking to Skyfire over the bubble of water bath and a hastily-covered bruise: _think of him as a gladiator sending his underlings to be whipped and it becomes a bit less preposterous_.

The words had been his and he had felt only mild annoyance attempting to explain something Skyfire would never understand – something, perhaps, no one should ever have to. It was his reality, and perhaps the most terrifying thing was his stationary state. He only attempted to scramble up to escape Megatron himself, but never the world. Never the laws or lack thereof. The place he had not only learned to survive but been taught to, formed to, from the very beginning.

"Your double-standards are blinding, my Seeker, but it is time you feel their weight and the responsibility that comes with them."

Megatron's deep voice made his skin tighten. He looked up; the President was inches away from him. Stepping close, the older man ran his hand down his Second's arm with a forwardness that made Starscream sick to his stomach. The feeling doubled as the words and their insinuations found slits in his quivering muscles, worming in.

He showed his weakness by recoiling, but it was all he could do. The small, dumb sound that jerked out of him was equally involuntary when Megatron's hand turned hard and clamped around his wrist, keeping him there within the red aura that prickled so tangibly around his barbaric form.

"Why do you hold so strongly to this one token decency? It is pathetic," Megatron hissed in his ear. His fingers squeezed sharply then his grip changed abruptly, impossibly, fluidly curling around the younger man's limb as if to showcase and admire the thinness and whiteness of his wrist. Doting. Indulgent. "I expect more of you, and yet you are such a perfectionist. Crafting your own weakness as attentively and obsessively as you build all your strengths."

"You think I am incapable of objecting to you on principle?" Starscream snapped, staggering backwards and barely breaking free of the ownership in his superior's grip and voice. Staring at the man's indomitable silhouette, the Seeker felt his own pupils spiral into pinpricks, every defense following suit. The sense of a _plan_ laid out underneath his feet, growing slowly, made him feel overwhelmingly trapped: trapped in the office, trapped in his suit, trapped in his head. "Why on earth would you think this falls under the same guidelines as everything else?"

"Because even in the most perverted abstraction of morality, there is nothing good in you!" Megatron boomed, arms out. He devoured the young man's drawn face with a manic expression that bordered on insane, hands frozen in grabbing for Starscream's thin arms yet somehow beseeching. "Why resist? Why _lie_?"

Starscream drew back, mouth open, but Megatron stepped in and cut him off, deep voice feverish.

"Your precious scientist was a pet in that terrarium of a lab. A curiosity. You cannot comprehend his morality. You feel no twinge, no righteous pain, even when brought face to face with our illegal activities, the way you are treated, the way you treat your underlings – _nothing_. Possibly the only comment you can make is practical management. A restructuring of your never-ending stairway upwards."

_Do not pretend you know what I think_ was hot on Starscream's tongue, but he couldn't get it out. It wasn't just the tyrant's skill at speaking that held him fast. The way Megatron was looking at him was almost proud. No.

Adoring.

"I watched you, as I have always watched you. With your scientist, I saw your expression – or lack thereof. You had no consuming fervor at the mention of what would be done with the gas; your initial passivity about working on the gas under deception persisted. You didn't think for a moment of actually joining forces with your knight and flouting me, even for a hero's welcome at Detroit city hall."

"You heard that," Starscream breathed out, skin prickling madly to realize just how endless the man's reach and resources were. Megatron's smug expression was all the answer he needed and abruptly the Seeker felt the most violated he ever had, in a way that was different from being slammed into a shelf.

The cameras had never stopped rolling. The man had seen every moment with Skyfire, every single thing he thought had been hidden. His retreat, his blessed safe space, was now nothing but a closed environment for an experiment.

A stage.

"You see, I do believe in what they call redemption Starscream, in so far as I acknowledge the possibility of a vital change in a single person," Megatron was saying, his tone maddeningly pedantic. He watched his inferior with a suspended pleasure and a seriousness that Starscream could barely comprehend, too caught up in the unraveling of all he thought real. "I believe in it, because what my years have taught me is that nothing can stay preserved perfectly. It is never too late for change – and yet, the fact that you were offered, _gift-wrapped_, a chance to redeem yourself in the classic scope of morality and you didn't take it? Telling, little Seeker. Very telling."

"Going against you is suicide and you know it," Starscream grit out softly, chest locking up. He felt the truth of it all over again, overwhelmed by the lost sensation that flooded his brittle body as he stood in front of Skyfire. True hopelessness.

"But you could have made it!"

A sudden, harsh laugh burst out of Megatron, too close and too loud.

"If you had worked quickly enough, with enough _heart _– " he crowed, slamming his hand against his wide chest. "— you could have immediately entered a witness protection program and you know the fools at the D.P.D. would have committed murder for a confession from my Second. Your talent for exaggeration persists in all things: I have only a parcel of the government under my control, and that excludes the part that would have protected you, had you chosen correctly. It would have been difficult, twice as wrenching to sweep all of your siblings under the carpet and out of my reach, but you could have done it and you didn't. Not even for the promise of redemption. Not even for your scientist. Why?"

The ringing silence in the office dragged on. Megatron's faintly amazed smile curled at the edges as if burning inwards and abruptly his face was twisted in impatience, in fury.

"_Why_?" he roared, neck narrowing down to brutal tendons.

"Because I wasn't thinking! Because I was terrified!" Starscream burst out, flinging his arm in front of his chest.

"Because you still want this," Megatron corrected him, deep voice smooth and unnervingly calm. The floods and droughts of loud and soft were shaking his Second down to nothing and, gratified, he waited until Starscream was looking at him, truly seeing him, before continuing. "You weren't willing to suffer for the destruction of the very company you want to rule. 'Goodness', or righteous action, holds no lure for you, and indeed it is thankless. That is the lesson I wish for you to learn, my Second. What you are not, and what you are willing to do for what you want."

Struck down to his core, Starscream could do nothing but stare. Megatron stared into his face and, finding what he needed, continued.

"We are what they call evil. Even if it is a label with unnecessary conviction and passion, it functions. Evil is an action, a human lacking that allows us to transcend certain roadblocks, and we are skilled men," he said slowly, deep voice bringing life and truth to his creed: ruling reality as he always had done, not through arrogance or money but through a damning, preternatural understanding of how the darkest of things worked. "You could never survive in a world that prizes selflessness. Pushed in the slightest, you cut all ties and revert. You are a calculated creature, Starscream, efficient and brutal, and that is what I cherish about you. With the brief exception of the scientist called Skyfire, it is impossible not to see what matters to you."

To hear Skyfire – a golden man, a smile, the smell of shampoo and cheap wine and a big hand on his back – labeled as an experiment brought him further away from the untouched white of the lab and all the time he spent there, widening the chasm in his memory. Then he realized Megatron was right.

He never would have gone with Skyfire – never would have gone with anyone – for simple sake of belief.

D-Con was his life. He had nothing besides the company; he had nothing _left_. He thought he was terrified at losing his life by going against Megatron, but the scenario that brought up greater uncomprehending terror was that of tearing down his life's work to do so. Something deep in him rebelled, screamed no, so loudly and so brainstem-strong that it drowned out all else.

It had been screaming since Skyfire looked at him with that expression that said there was still hope for him.

And though the concept burned coldly and stridently in his mind, Starscream couldn't even protest that he could leave the company and his life. Start over, perhaps in science. In the rip left by Skyfire's exit, the Seeker saw he didn't have the wherewithal to pursue something so thankless – and all their generation's scientists had already been chosen. He needed recognition, speedy elevation and political pull. If he truly abandoned D-Con and followed his intellectual leanings, he would become cagey at the dead-ends, the lack of power. Begin to lash out at those around him.

Already, even with Skyfire by his side, he had become irritated with the work he was doing in lab, wanting results faster than he could get them. In any other profession, including the one he professed to love, his ambition would eat him alive. The facts of his very nature hollowed him, leaving the Seeker staring into nothingness.

D-Con's Second was torn from his realization by the slithering sound of suit-fabric and a hand sliding around his waist, both felt separately and then painfully combined. Megatron.

His nerves sparked with something too bright to be felt, only reacted to. He jerked away but the huge man's iron palm caught him and yanked him to his side, crushing him there. Frozen, Starscream's wide eyes locked on the sharp line of Megatron's shaven jaw and the metallic streak of silver at his temple. The smell of him rushed his senses, the strength in his arm making his knees weaken as though some universal balance were being struck.

"You will see, now, why your little resistance ceased to seem genuine months ago," Megatron murmured into his prickling cheek, too close to bear. The President bent to his neck, fingers slowly knotting in the fabric of the younger man's suit jacket as he breathed in. "You are too ambitious for rules, no matter their origins."

Starscream's heart leapt, the surge of response in his tightly-strung body vacillating between lethal nausea and dogged, maddening arousal. His overwhelming desperation to bend and acquiesce and keep the hard hand on his waist from curling into a fist combined like lighter fluid with the attraction that always fumed between them, intoxicating and nauseating and wrong, an explosive concoction with a freak result that was all brainstem. He rallied every single fiber in his body to stare wildly, accusingly, desperately up at the man who had ruined not only his life but his self-image, white claws sunk into his grey armor.

"You want to fuck me, do it! _Do it_," Starscream nearly screamed, world fraying as the room – the temple and its god – stayed painfully still. "Is this all it comes down to for you?"

The words left him before he could think on them, saturated with poison, but they stung so true that they felt right. A burning, self-mutilating kind of right, if just to release the pressure welling beneath his skin by his rotting muscles, the cloying expectation and salty pressure layered there over so many months by the man he called his President. Above him, Megatron did not smile.

"No. This is all it comes down to for you," Megatron answered, too softly to be real. He looked into Starscream's bloodless face, expression radiating a seriousness and an incomprehensible reverence. "I am trying to perfect you, Starscream. I promised I would bring you relief if only you submitted to me. This is your deference. Do this, and you will free yourself."

"So this is an act of charity," Starscream rasped like he was spitting venom, lip curling back. All over his body, he could feel a mirroring action taking place: a raising of any fleshy curtain to reveal what was hard and sharp, a weapon. He calcified in Megatron's arms, eyes burning a crimson he felt stronger than anything.

It breathed fire into the rest of him, allowing no weakness. He was made of metal, with slicing wings across his back, a fusion of all he had ever wanted and all fear that had kept him from. His President's greatest weapon.

Then Megatron smiled, even if it was only to see the purity of anger in his Second.

"We have already proven that is impossible," he murmured, callused thumb coming to trace the curve of his flushed ear. "This is merely the next step. What you agreed to when you took my mark."

For that mad instant, the line between a golden tiepin and this moment, trapped against Megatron's chest and unable to breathe, made perfect sense. Starscream, body spasming, fought not to laugh at the inevitability of it all, the crushing downward slide that first began with a mother giving her son away at sunrise. Then he couldn't control it and it ripped out of him like a piecemeal cry of pain, and he laughed as he dug his nails into Megatron's arms, head tipping back.

Megatron, who held him almost tenderly until the shakes left him.

Drawn into the vortex, the older man pressed his face close to his Second's and stayed there as if scenting the fear and the fury on the younger man's uneven breath, inscribing every tremble into his metal bones. Chest burgeoning with promises unsaid and delivered upon, Megatron leaned down and kissed his Second's open mouth. Warmth sparked between the slide of their lips, nearly freezing the younger man's body – then Starscream bit down as hard as he could.

With the first patter of blood down his white dress shirt, Megatron knew he would live to regret the soldier he had molded, the hyena whose final chain he had himself snapped away, but the only thought in Starscream's tortured mind at that moment was that he would allow Megatron to terrorize him no more.

Jerking away with a stung growl, Megatron wrenched the Seeker to the side, pushing him up against the front of his mahogany desk with a sharp smack. The wood cut into Starscream's back in a way that should have sent him cringing, but at last the stale recycled fear was overwhelmed by a psychotically singular need for revenge. He was the first to reach for the man's grey suit-jacket, shucking it and quickly turning his narrow fingers Megatron's crimson tie, whipping it from his neck without pausing to choke or threaten.

His lip curled to feel his own orange tie slither free from his neck. He twisted away when Megatron's knuckles knocked at his chin, followed by a jarring ripping sensation that sent pearlized buttons scattering over the desk and floor. Starscream's caving chest was naked for no more than an instant before browned hands were scraping over it, stifling as the mouth sucking at his, slick and demanding and sharpened with teeth. Starscream pulled away with a snarl, pushing himself onto the edge of the desk and fumbling for the white collar in front of his face; the older man's answering push was halted in its tracks by the toe of a purple boot wedged against his groin as the Seeker destroyed his shirt with halting jerks, face twisted in rage.

The older man rumbled deep in his chest, the insane glow in his eyes stoked higher by less fabric and more skin. Exultant in the moment he had waited for.

Before, Starscream was wary of what the man's physique could be, how it could play on his weakness and bait his fears, but now he knew, the harder his chest, the deeper his nails could go. The farther the tearing sensation would travel up his arms to feed the burn at his center. Starscream barely registered the chiseled olive span of his enemy's pectorals and his muscle-corded arms as Megatron's dress shirt dropped to the floor: all his hard eyes saw was a canvas cut down the center by a grisly scar and half-covered by a criminally thin sleeveless undershirt. White.

Starscream hissed furiously when Megatron gripped his lower back and pulled him off the desk and into a crushing kiss, something so urgent and hard that he responded instinctively. Pushing into the older man's hot mouth, he arched his hips into the hand tearing at the front of his slacks. All at once, he could sense the need and explosive arousal in his superior like a scientist watching thin needles tremble and rise up on a gauge. Distant, even as Megatron was crushing him.

His smirk was waxy and humorless as he twisted to allow his President to rip his clothing down his legs. A thick groan drifted up from the man's knotted body when his burning hands clapped onto Starscream's spread thighs and narrow ass, clenching. Absorbing, feeling, exulting, reveling.

Pinned against the desk, Starscream could feel him heaving in grotesque detail, but there was something hidden in the unevenness of the tyrant's breath against his neck. In contrast to the Seeker's sudden stillness and his wide, clear eyes, locked on the office door over the older man's wide shoulder, Megatron was _trembling_. With so much black passion in the man in front of him, Starscream could suddenly think.

Megatron _needed_ him – or believed he did.

The burn of victory began small and incredulous but by the time his President shoved him back onto the desk, ripped his pants from his shoes and closed in with a stricken breath of air, Starscream was too consumed by the triumphant red to twist his mouth into a smile. Instead, he dug his nails in everywhere he could reach, barely pausing to feel anything else. The desk was chill against his ass and the older man's slacks scraped against the insides of his legs and Starscream, instead of pushing him away, gripped onto Megatron vengefully for the first time, reaching up and pressing his nails into his unprotected neck.

"I will rip you to shreds," he breathed, pushing his face into Megatron's and staring into the textureless grey that was his wild eyes. "I will make you regret ever looking at me."

"And I will wear your scars with pride," Megatron whispered against his mouth. He cooled Starscream's curled lips with a rough hiss as the Seeker dug in and downwards, striping the skin of his neck a grisly red. Mutilating the nakedness that he had been foolish to offer.

And so it began, that the gladiator removed his armor and now sought to lay with a lioness.

Underneath him, Starscream whined and gasped, transformed into a mad exhibitionist by the fact he was claiming the encounter. He was not being used. He was using, in his own way. Both men pushed and strained against each other, hissing and shaking. Locked in the most delayed and inevitable of battles, they fought for the title of user in the arena in which they had circled each other for too long, wearing grooves into the sand and their twisted minds.

Atop the desk, Starscream gasped and cursed as it became too much to bear, finally pulling his stomach tight with the fevered arch of his back. Megatron pulled him up before the shivers ceased, biting viciously into the curve of his neck until the brat's cry joined his, ragged and furious and hateful and, above all, victorious.

Slowly, they came to stillness, bodies tense and echoing. The desk was still beneath them. The office was still around them, Detroit sun-lit and small beneath the windows. An identical landscape, yet somehow changed beyond recognition by the raw scent in the air.

Deaf and blind, Starscream leaned against Megatron's pulsing chest. He hardly felt the hot breath against his aching, burning shoulder – hardly felt his own breath scraping out of him – but was absolutely emptied. Emptied of fear, emptied of thoughts or wants or needs or the barest prickle of self-preservation. What came to fill the gap was both the high tremble of victory and lower vibration of true dread.

Slowly, his hands drifted onto the muscled plane of his Lord and President's back and found the stripes of blood by touch alone. Carefully, almost gently, Starscream pressed his fingers into them. Megatron exhaled sharply into his neck, but did not move away.

Starscream, floating, was struck with the impression that complete dissolution of his world did not hurt nearly as much as he had thought it would.

But he knew: because he claimed it, met Megatron head-on with ire and arousal equal, he had turned this most feared of encounters into not a surrender but yet another battle. He had survived. He was Megatron's equal.

Against his neck, Megatron began to laugh. It was deep and unsteady, pushing slowly upwards into something rich and satisfied and mildly insane. Arms wrapped around his wide back, Starscream remained against his President, neither leaning on him nor pulling away from the hard planes of his sweat-slick body. The Seeker's eyes, wide and fading from reality, were locked on the thorny purple symbol above them as his enemy's blood dried on his nails.

It was over — and it had just begun.


	57. Afterword

Odd Moments Afterword: A Series of Statements and Extrapolations

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*** Hey, you!**

Okay, so, you're probably pissed. Or you actually like the symbolic ending I agonized over… that will hereafter flow into the Odd version of G1, just, y'know, in your head. Before any heart-stopping yet routine molestation occurred between the stars. Which is what you'd been waiting for. All along.

Yep. I'll go jump off a bridge, now.

*** So what now?**

You see, if there were a ridiculously long bridge summary for this chapter and the next 'stage' of the story, it would be this:

_Megatron has indeed revealed what his Second is capable of, but it did not cause Starscream to seek guidance from Megatron with this new 'power' in-hand. In forcing him to give up the last boundary he had, Megatron has earned the spite and maniacal broken rage of a self-destructive man who has absolutely nothing to lose, and the once-horrific idea of carnality will become yet another excuse to get Megatron within striking distance. For Starscream, it's either the top or die trying: it is the only thing he will settle for after all that he has lost and his cowardice will lessen as his desperation builds. Business sabotage attempts will seem coy after this situation has been left to escalate for several years and it will end, in one way or another, with a knife in the President's gut, and Starscream's hand on the handle. _

There it is. I say this not because I think you won't understand (though I know a fair few will not bother to look for a theme or a power-shift that makes this ending fitting or even relevant) but because I didn't do it justice and I need to explain it to myself.

*** Sorry about that whole story thing: I kinda messed up.**

As much as I looked forward to it, this story-arc is sloppy at best and mutilated at worst. 'A Fat Mess' is an accurate label, really. I worked myself deeper into mud as things kept expanding as the tricky, sticky characterization demanded. Skyfire's arc was supposed to be a chapter or two. You haaaave to laugh at that, but I fell into the spike-lined plot pit of making Starscream a sympathetic character, truly pitiable yet doomed to his own flaws. I expected to be able to get to the regular-office-molestation stage easily and realized about halfway through, with as much as Starscream's (alternate, human-verse) character focused on his trauma, that such a thing would be impossible. More importantly, I felt far less comfortable with it as reality-checks fought against the idea of Starscream mentally _surviving_ being abused by anyone, perhaps because of how he had focused _himself_ around the horrible events in his life, obsessing and building on his fear.

I needed some kind of connector and a breaking point, a way for Starscream to confront his fears or destroy that survival instinct entirely, before these two interpretations could flow into some semblance of their G1 counterparts. That's what this ending is.

*** What, you want more explanation?**

Starscream used to be vile, narcissistic and scheming but still clung to some semblance of humanity, regardless of how selfish it was; now, after losing Skyfire, he's self-admittedly evil with no internal boundaries, willing to kill to get what he wants. Just to be excruciatingly obvious, the repetition of the line 'no one will believe you' (from Star's long-ago foray with the teacher) is meant to represent his regression into only caring about himself and his toxic willingness to contort any form of law or rightness to stay safe and powerful. In this, he is binding himself to all that D-Con does, hiding in evil's shadow and accepting Megatron's way – and picking up his Lord's weapons as his own. (And, by the by, that file that Shockwave planted in Skyfire's things will be impossible to prove as legitimate, and all evidence of his research destroyed, so the case will not be resolved and D-Con will thunder on as evilly as ever.)

Thus enters true G1 Starscream, arrogant and immortal, and the opener to all the classic, straight-forward abuse you've come to expect of the Seeker and his Lord while a political war rages around them. It was all I could do to drag it to this hard-knuckling crescendo, show the crack, and let you imagine the blackness that followed.

*** Except not exactly, so please put down the plastic explosives.**

Much as I did with the half-hashed sequel to Odd Couple, I am working on compiling what follows this piece at my **livejournal account**, Demzbebe. It is ridiculously long, because I practically have these guys' entire lives planned out for them. I was always thinking even when I wasn't writing. Despite the word-vomit pidgin and uncompleted scenes and conflicting themes, it's bound to be more satisfying than all you have endured here, if you signed up for gratuitous angry and oft hilarious office sex (and allusions to a greater G1-esque plotline and the classic clash of Autobots and Decepticons).

Despite being little more than a blow-by-blow of Megatron and Starscream tearing each other apart until they realize the crushing futility of it all, it has a happy ending. Surprisingly.

This is not happy for normal people. This is not happy for healthy people. This is happy for two incredibly destroyed souls who, in their death-lock, managed to find some sort of balance in each other after complete self-annihilation, and I ask that you do not hold it to any other standard but obviously take what pleasure from it you can. It's fiction. Have fun, and I'm sure your imagination can supplement whatever imagery-sparse summaries you find in the continuation of this story.

*** Disclaimer: check. Summarizing statement?**

Thank you, Soundwave!

Evil sonsabitches go well with malevolent overlords, and there they should remain, if only to keep them from hurting innocent bystanders. Thanks for reading and sorry for the long silence at the end, guys and gals. It wasn't a fitting reward for how loyal and good of readers you've been. You guys have been just fantastic, supportive and sweet, and I thank you again for giving this crazy idea a chance. Keep checking Demzbebe at Livejournal and I'll have the nameless sequel posted in a few increments, hopefully sometime after I get settled in Spain.

So, this is me quietly stepping out of the Transformers pool and toweling off. I don't expect the Cybertronian Country Club to close down after I leave, so you may see me again, but chances are I'll be a bit of an Elvis, popping in and out and munching on peanut-butter banana sandwiches amid contradictory rumors of my death. Regardless, it's been great, and I'll see you in the fandom lands. Ciao!

Demyrie

**PS:** For anyone who wants to play with this little universe I've created, I give you full permission (that's not really mine to give I'M SORRY HASBRO, but whatever). Everyone has been very conscientious about alerting me to re-appropriations of my human interpretations, but all that is required is a link or a credit to the original story or my account, and you're good to go. I know there are loads of unexplored plot-lines and characters – that was part of the charm of this Oddverse – and I'm sure as hell not going to throw my toys away just because I'm done playing with them. They're kinda pretty, after all.

Have fun, guys!


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